Grönland
Ein Roman
Der junge Autor Kip Starling hat sich mit einer Pistole und einem Langzeitvorrat Mineralwasser im Keller seines Hauses in Brooklyn verbarrikadiert, um ungestört zu arbeiten. In nur drei Wochen soll Kip seinen ersten Roman abliefern – ein ambitioniertes Werk über das Schicksal des jungen Ägypters Mohammed el Adl, der von 1917 bis 1922 der Liebhaber der britischen Schriftstellerlegende E. M. Forster war.
Mohammed erscheint Kip gleichzeitig rätselhaft und seltsam vertraut. Sie sind beide schwarz und queer, sie führen beide prägende Beziehungen zu weißen Männern, sie sind jeder auf seine Weise mit Vorurteilen, Rassismus und Homophobie konfrontiert.
Während Kip sich wie im Rausch in die Arbeit stürzt, beginnen die Grenzen zwischen Fiktion und Wirklichkeit, Literatur und Leben, Gestern und Heute zu verschwimmen. Mohammeds Geschichte (und schließlich Mohammed selbst) beginnt zu Kip zu sprechen.
Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit wird zu einem Proust’schen Portal in seine eigene Erinnerungswelt.
Drei Kontinente, zwei Epochen, eine Sprache: David Santos Donaldson beleuchtet den Traum von der Assimilation in einer weiß dominierten Mehrheitsgesellschaft sowie die Fallstricke und Missverständnisse in interkulturellen Beziehungen. Zudem spürt er in dringlicher, irisierender Prosa dem Erbe des Schriftstellergiganten E. M. Forster nach, um gleichzeitig die erlösende Kraft der Literatur als solcher zu beschwören.
Die Originalausgabe von “Grönland” wurde von der amerikanischen Presse begeistert aufgenommen und Donaldson als neue Stimme der Black Queer Literature in einem Atemzug mit Bryan Washington, Brandon Taylor und Robert Jones, Jr. genannt.
“Grönland” ist ein eindrücklicher Debütroman, der auf meisterhafte Weise die Vergangenheit an der Gegenwart spiegelt und die Suche nach der Wahrheit als Motor künstlerischer Schaffensprozesse nicht nur greifbar werden lässt, sondern auch als das sinnliche Abenteuer offenbart, das große Literatur ausmacht.
Wo kann man Grönland bestellen?
Über David Santos Donaldson
Author photo by Billy Bustamante
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Lob für Grönland
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“This is a book with respect for neither the margins of the page nor those that confine us in the real world. Donaldson sustains a plot that ends with ecstasy, action and reconciliation, satisfyingly concluding a novel of ideas that is also about one queer Black man finding his true north.”
—Bethanne Patrick Los Angeles Times
INDIES INTRODUCE PICKS GREENLAND IN TOP 10 DEBUTS SUMMER/FALL 2022
“If you’ve ever been saved by a story or nudged back to life by a narrative, this book is for you! Beautifully written and discerningly plotted. Lovers of Baldwin (and everyone else, honestly) won’t be able to put it down.”
—Max Ruthless, Foggy Pine Books, Boone, NC
“Perceptive and personal, this compelling novel eloquently clarifies ongoing issues of race and racism while authentically telling a unique story. Highly Recommended. ”
— Library Journal (starred review)
“It’s easily my favorite book of the year, and one of the most innovative and moving novels I’ve ever read.”
— Laura Sackton, Book Riot
“As the barriers between past and present get increasingly blurry, David Santos Donaldson’s writing becomes more and more powerful and hypnotic. I couldn’t put this book down, because it’s one of the most engaging and thought provoking novels I’ve read this year.”
— Buzzfeed, David Vogel
“Donaldson explores the themes of race, class and sexuality in a powerful debut.”
—The Root
“Donaldson’s debut novel … is a delicious and delirious work of metafiction.”
—Michelle Hart, Electric Literature
“As it weaves in meditations on colonialism, spirituality, and the erotic, Santos Donadlson’s supremely stylish fever dream of a novel may delve most deeply into a specific subset of the queer experience, but the bigger questions it poses about how we come to terms with our own social and cultural identities make it feel surprisingly universal.”
—Liam Hess, Vogue
“…eloquent, totally absorbing . . .Greenland is another fine contribution to a growing canon of Black queer fiction.”
—John M. Clum, NY Journal of Books
“Greenland” is a refreshing novel from an author who makes unconventional artistic choices to serve his ends.
—Dexter Palmer, New York Times Book Review
“Irreverent and poignant …”
“[A] dazzling debut novel . . . Donaldson keeps us hooked from the start with snappy prose and tense but humane storytelling.”
—Patrick Rapa, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A metafictional feat and catnip for Anglophiles, this electric debut novel [is] . . sensuous and sly.”
“Besides being a talented fiction writer, Donaldson is a psychotherapist, and his debut novel is psychologically acute in its portrayal of a queer Black man crumbling under the weight of personal, historical, and racial trauma.”
— Booklist
“An intimate, compelling look at race and racism”
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
“History, voice and creativity burst off the page in this debut that examines identity and society through the ages,”
—Katherine Ouellette, WBUR’s ARTery
“[An] assured debut … The multiple story lines intrigue, and the writing—“the thick air clung to my skin… like a jilted lover”—is crisp . . . The author clearly has talent, and his work’s many fine points suggest he’s one to keep an eye on.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A sly meditation on the audacious possibility of salvation by narrative.”
— Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints and The Wind Done Gone.
“David Santos Donaldson’s debut novel Greenland is profoundly entertaining and full of emotion, humor, pain, and wisdom. This is the work of a brilliant, inventive, sensuous dreamer.”
— Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters and Lives of the Circus Animals
“Dazzling…Greenland examines the difficulties of creating loving relationships between the colonizer and the colonized, especially when they are of the same gender and of different races. Like a new century’s James Baldwin, David Santos Donaldson writes insightfully about why raging against prejudice and injustice is a necessary act before the atrocities of history can begin to heal.”
— Jaime Manrique, author of Like This Afternoon Forever, and Cervantes Street
“Greenland depicts a panorama that will make you think of both Robert Altman and Tony Kushner—you will be happier, richer, aroused.”
—James Grissom, author of Follies of God
—HOWARD ROSENMAN, producer, Call Me by Your Name; executive producer,The Celluloid Closet