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In the End, It Was All About Love
The narrator arrives in Berlin, a place famed for its hedonism, to find peace and maybe love; only to discover that the problems which have long haunted him have arrived there too, and are more present than ever. As he approaches his fortieth birthday, nearing the age where his father was killed in a brutal revolution, he drifts through this endlessly addictive and sometimes mystical city, through its slow days and bottomless nights, wondering whether he will ever escape the damage left by his father’s death. With the world as a whole more uncertain, as both the far-right and global temperatures rise at frightening speed, he finds himself fighting a fierce inner battle against his turbulent past, for a future free of his fear of failure, of persecution, and of intimacy.
In The End, It Was All About Love is a journey of loss and self-acceptance that takes its nameless narrator all the way through bustling Berlin to his roots, a quiet village on the Uganda-Sudan border. It is a bracingly honest story of love, sexuality and spirituality, of racism, dating, and alienation; of fleeing the greatest possible pain, and of the hopeful road home.
In The End, It Was All About Love is a journey of loss and self-acceptance that takes its nameless narrator all the way through bustling Berlin to his roots, a quiet village on the Uganda-Sudan border. It is a bracingly honest story of love, sexuality and spirituality, of racism, dating, and alienation; of fleeing the greatest possible pain, and of the hopeful road home.
133 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2021
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4225 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews
February 2, 2021
An achingly, searingly beautiful read. An absolute masterclass in second-person writing. A small book with an ocean inside, and, most of all, this was an experience of a read like I've not had in a long time. I don't know Berlin, I don't know many things Okwonga softly, firmly, infuses his reader with, but I felt them, and I will feel them for some time. And there were one or two things, small things, huge things, that I do know well, and to read of those aspects of being human in these words left me breathless. Phenomenal, so thoroughly recommended.
June 12, 2022
Beautiful and so thoughtful. For such a short book it really walks you through so much emotion. It also fought with some of my hidden biases. Called me out and opened my mind up. I loved it.
February 18, 2021
A moving, beautiful book that has stayed with me since the day I read it. The writing is so lyrical, and this was such a poignant read.
June 25, 2021
I don't really want to critcise this as the author has clearly poured his life blood into this, but it just wasn't the book for me. As a native Berliner, the overblown mythologising of the city as a living entity out to challlenge and transform you has always slightly annoyed me. Surely any big city can do this and it rather depends on what you personally bring to a place in terms of expectations and hope. Okwonga's way of writng about Berlin strikes me more as a universal migration experience, with all the fears and hopes that entails. The lack of specificity when taking about the city (why not name your favourite cafes if you're already writing a chapter on them?) didn't help in bringing his chosen city to life. His moral qualms about which jobs to take struck me as overblown too. That's not a valid criticism in itself, just another hurdle for me while trying to believe in the protagonist.
However, it is full of beautifully written passages too and if the author's situation resembles his protagonist's as much as I felt was implied I fervently hope his life in Berlin works out the way he hopes for.
However, it is full of beautifully written passages too and if the author's situation resembles his protagonist's as much as I felt was implied I fervently hope his life in Berlin works out the way he hopes for.
July 26, 2021
In The End, It Was All About Love.
There are only two states where you have ever felt safe: when you had money and when you had love, and you have never really had much of either. The lack of money—that is your fault, your choice: you could have had a stable career, but instead you chose to make your way as an artist. Or did you choose it? Some tell you that the road chose you.
And the lack of love: maybe that is your fault too, maybe it is also your choice. Because there are people who have tried to love you, but you have not allowed them to do so.
In The End, It Was All About Love is a powerful novel by Musa Okwonga by poet, journalist, musician and author Musa Okwonga, and published by Rough Trade books.
The novel is narrated by a 40 year-old bisexual black man, living in Berlin, a poet, musician, journalist and football fan. His parents are originally from Uganda, his father first leaving the country, then returning in the 1980s during the civil war and dying in 1983 in a helicopter crash, dying alongside General Oyite-Ojok, the crash officially an accident but one rife with conspiracy theories (indeed while researching, I found one article arguing that the author/narrator's father was actually responsible).
Which all rather ties up with the author's own biography. Asked in an interview if the novel was auto-fiction, Okwonga laughed and replied "I’d say it’s more like a ‘tall tale’ – can we call it that? Obviously there’s parts of this book that haven’t happened, and characters that don’t exist in real life...."
The narrator has left the UK, repelled by the anti-immigration feelings linked to the Brexit vote, for Berlin.
Berlin is not a bubble.
Many people will call it that, even those who should know better. It is not a bubble. A bubble is a carefully-sealed world whose occupants are oblivious to everything that happens beyonf: it. Berlin is something different. It is a refuge, an enclave, a safe haven. If Berlin were your bubble then that would mean you were incurious about whatever happened in other parts of the world. But you are acutely aware of those happenings, and that is why you are here. There is a very good chance that you are here because you fled the true bubbles of our societies—the small suburbs and villages where you were raised. where your difference was at best tolerated. There is a very good chance that those places, those bubbles, will resent how you see them now. that they will interpret your distance as elitism and snobbery as opposed to an essential act of self-protection. Those places, those bubbles, will not stop to think about what they did to you, that you were so traumatised that you had to flee at the earliest opportunity.
Coming up to the age at which his father died, the narrator is having something of a mid-life crisis, his career rewarding intellectually but not financially, failing to find love, and increasingly finding Berlin is not the refuge from racism he has hoped.
The story is also told in the second person, a bugbear I know for many readers, but very effective here. As Okwonga has explained he uses the device to make his story, at least initially, universal:
My idea was to start off with very universal experiences, like arriving in Berlin – anyone can do that, white, straight, whatever – and you’re reading it, you’re into it, so by the time something happens that is not specific to your experience, you’re already emotionally invested. I wanted to put the reader in a place where they would actually walk a mile in my shoes.
And - a massive plus for this reader - it is told in wonderful compact prose, a succession of typically page long vignettes. As Okwonga has said - and which ought to be a creed for all authors:
I’m obsessed with saying the most I possibly can in the least possible words.
The novel is told in three sections, each of which begins with a poem:
Part One: Righteous Migrants - the poem concerns the lingering effect of the winds that blew the slave ships, and the narrative tells of the narrator's time in Berlin.
Part Two: Black Gravity, has a poem about all the incidents of racial-violence that have impacted the narrator's acquaintances, the black gravity "a physical force that stormed black people the second they left their front doors," as the narrator is told by Dr. Oppong, a therapist he visits, whose therapy contains a mixture of science and magic realism.
Part Three: Your Passport, opens with a tribute to the narrator's well-travelled father, and has him visiting northern Uganda and his father's home village and his grave.
Okwonga was best known to me as a (lyrical) writer on football, notably A Cultured Left Foot: The Eleven Elements Of Footballing Greatness, and he uses football to illustrate the challenges of Berlin's winters, casual racial stereotyping and the offsetting camaradarie of his companions in a piece called 'Running Through the Snow with Unicorns', the Unicorns the name of the local team for which he plays:
They have often said that African footballers can't handle cold conditions—and, though strictly speaking you are British, you feel an urge to represent Uganda tonight. Your parents came from that country's northern region, and your grandfather coached its football team; somehow, thousands of miles from where he first took his players for training, you are paying an ancient homage. You put on your tattered national jersey, a black short-sleeved shirt with red and yellow trim and the badge bearing a crested crane, and you head out there. The few of you who make it to training are notably proud of yourselves, and the snow has the decency to wait until you have finished to flood the playing field. Within fifteen minutes of the final kick, the astroturf has been turned entirely white. You don't think your friends know what this laughter, this camaraderie means to you, and you can't tell them—not because it would make things awkward, but because it would interrupt this gorgeous moment.
On the real-life team, Okwonga has explained:
Recommended - and one I hope to see on the Booker and/or Goldsmiths Prize lists.
Interviews and extracts:
https://www.exberliner.com/features/p...
https://thequietus.com/articles/29670...
https://trenchtrenchtrench.com/featur...
https://www.ft.com/content/e6f5315e-2...
There are only two states where you have ever felt safe: when you had money and when you had love, and you have never really had much of either. The lack of money—that is your fault, your choice: you could have had a stable career, but instead you chose to make your way as an artist. Or did you choose it? Some tell you that the road chose you.
And the lack of love: maybe that is your fault too, maybe it is also your choice. Because there are people who have tried to love you, but you have not allowed them to do so.
In The End, It Was All About Love is a powerful novel by Musa Okwonga by poet, journalist, musician and author Musa Okwonga, and published by Rough Trade books.
The novel is narrated by a 40 year-old bisexual black man, living in Berlin, a poet, musician, journalist and football fan. His parents are originally from Uganda, his father first leaving the country, then returning in the 1980s during the civil war and dying in 1983 in a helicopter crash, dying alongside General Oyite-Ojok, the crash officially an accident but one rife with conspiracy theories (indeed while researching, I found one article arguing that the author/narrator's father was actually responsible).
Which all rather ties up with the author's own biography. Asked in an interview if the novel was auto-fiction, Okwonga laughed and replied "I’d say it’s more like a ‘tall tale’ – can we call it that? Obviously there’s parts of this book that haven’t happened, and characters that don’t exist in real life...."
The narrator has left the UK, repelled by the anti-immigration feelings linked to the Brexit vote, for Berlin.
Berlin is not a bubble.
Many people will call it that, even those who should know better. It is not a bubble. A bubble is a carefully-sealed world whose occupants are oblivious to everything that happens beyonf: it. Berlin is something different. It is a refuge, an enclave, a safe haven. If Berlin were your bubble then that would mean you were incurious about whatever happened in other parts of the world. But you are acutely aware of those happenings, and that is why you are here. There is a very good chance that you are here because you fled the true bubbles of our societies—the small suburbs and villages where you were raised. where your difference was at best tolerated. There is a very good chance that those places, those bubbles, will resent how you see them now. that they will interpret your distance as elitism and snobbery as opposed to an essential act of self-protection. Those places, those bubbles, will not stop to think about what they did to you, that you were so traumatised that you had to flee at the earliest opportunity.
Coming up to the age at which his father died, the narrator is having something of a mid-life crisis, his career rewarding intellectually but not financially, failing to find love, and increasingly finding Berlin is not the refuge from racism he has hoped.
The story is also told in the second person, a bugbear I know for many readers, but very effective here. As Okwonga has explained he uses the device to make his story, at least initially, universal:
My idea was to start off with very universal experiences, like arriving in Berlin – anyone can do that, white, straight, whatever – and you’re reading it, you’re into it, so by the time something happens that is not specific to your experience, you’re already emotionally invested. I wanted to put the reader in a place where they would actually walk a mile in my shoes.
And - a massive plus for this reader - it is told in wonderful compact prose, a succession of typically page long vignettes. As Okwonga has said - and which ought to be a creed for all authors:
I’m obsessed with saying the most I possibly can in the least possible words.
The novel is told in three sections, each of which begins with a poem:
Part One: Righteous Migrants - the poem concerns the lingering effect of the winds that blew the slave ships, and the narrative tells of the narrator's time in Berlin.
Part Two: Black Gravity, has a poem about all the incidents of racial-violence that have impacted the narrator's acquaintances, the black gravity "a physical force that stormed black people the second they left their front doors," as the narrator is told by Dr. Oppong, a therapist he visits, whose therapy contains a mixture of science and magic realism.
Part Three: Your Passport, opens with a tribute to the narrator's well-travelled father, and has him visiting northern Uganda and his father's home village and his grave.
Okwonga was best known to me as a (lyrical) writer on football, notably A Cultured Left Foot: The Eleven Elements Of Footballing Greatness, and he uses football to illustrate the challenges of Berlin's winters, casual racial stereotyping and the offsetting camaradarie of his companions in a piece called 'Running Through the Snow with Unicorns', the Unicorns the name of the local team for which he plays:
They have often said that African footballers can't handle cold conditions—and, though strictly speaking you are British, you feel an urge to represent Uganda tonight. Your parents came from that country's northern region, and your grandfather coached its football team; somehow, thousands of miles from where he first took his players for training, you are paying an ancient homage. You put on your tattered national jersey, a black short-sleeved shirt with red and yellow trim and the badge bearing a crested crane, and you head out there. The few of you who make it to training are notably proud of yourselves, and the snow has the decency to wait until you have finished to flood the playing field. Within fifteen minutes of the final kick, the astroturf has been turned entirely white. You don't think your friends know what this laughter, this camaraderie means to you, and you can't tell them—not because it would make things awkward, but because it would interrupt this gorgeous moment.
On the real-life team, Okwonga has explained:
It’s a special team. The club I play for, the Unicorns, is set up with a specific charter of being anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist. The players are selected on being good at football, but also on being good people. We would have trials and then go for a drink at the pub with all the trialists to see what they’re like. Sometimes brilliant footballers would come to trial but wouldn’t be invited to the squad because they aren’t gentle people.
Recommended - and one I hope to see on the Booker and/or Goldsmiths Prize lists.
Interviews and extracts:
https://www.exberliner.com/features/p...
https://thequietus.com/articles/29670...
https://trenchtrenchtrench.com/featur...
https://www.ft.com/content/e6f5315e-2...
January 27, 2021
A dazzling and evocative love letter to life as told by one of the most eloquent and courageous writers working today. Okwonga's words cut deep into the heart to leave an indelible mark that becomes part of the reader, shaking the soul. A book destined to become a blueprint for anyone who dares to make the journey outside the comforts of their homeland in search of love--and more--beyond.
September 2, 2021
I'm a sucker for books like this. Meandering, anchored only to transient vibes and feelings, ruminative explorations of emotional states, restless and rootless. Greg Baxter and Teju Cole have done fairly similar work, and if you liked either of those...
'You look at the empty laptop screen before you and the list of new projects next to it, and you can’t be bothered to start. What is the point, you think, of all this writing, all this creating, if at the end there is no-one to stroke your head on the night bus home, no-one’s hand to hold in a darkened cinema, no-one to feed ice cream on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. What is the point of trying to put joy into the world when you can find none of your own.
'You think of those comedians and soul singers who entertained and brought solace to so many but who never met someone who cherished them; and then you look around your flat, where barely a friend or lover ever sets foot, and you realise that, though oceans away from their success, you are still sailing in similar waters. What is the point of all this, you wonder; and then, because you have rowed so far out into this life that it feels you have no other options, you start to type. In The End, you begin, It Was All About Love.'
'You look at the empty laptop screen before you and the list of new projects next to it, and you can’t be bothered to start. What is the point, you think, of all this writing, all this creating, if at the end there is no-one to stroke your head on the night bus home, no-one’s hand to hold in a darkened cinema, no-one to feed ice cream on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. What is the point of trying to put joy into the world when you can find none of your own.
'You think of those comedians and soul singers who entertained and brought solace to so many but who never met someone who cherished them; and then you look around your flat, where barely a friend or lover ever sets foot, and you realise that, though oceans away from their success, you are still sailing in similar waters. What is the point of all this, you wonder; and then, because you have rowed so far out into this life that it feels you have no other options, you start to type. In The End, you begin, It Was All About Love.'
April 24, 2022
I have a great interest in Berlin, and am also keen to enlarge my reading of authors of colour, so this was a serendipitous find at my local library.
Beautifully expressed, engaging and moving, and will definitely hope to read more by Musa Okwonga.
Beautifully expressed, engaging and moving, and will definitely hope to read more by Musa Okwonga.
March 6, 2021
There’s something about the third person that I don’t like. I have always found it jarring and there are very few books utilising this writing which I have liked. Musa Okwonga’s In the End it was All About Love has joined that tiny list.
Considering that Annie Ernaux’s brief memoirs have dominated my reading over the last few weeks, I am in awe of the author who manages to squeeze a lot of topics using a limited about of space. In the End…. is also a memoir and is a mere 120 pages but there is A LOT going on. The thing is that Musa Okwonga writes so fluidly that the reader doesn’t even know that this is quite a rich book.
In the End.. starts with the narrator moving to Berlin, the native land being Uganda. We readers are already introduced to some of the themes: the author is nearing 41, the same age as his father when he died and the author has gone through a break up. Thus this trip to Berlin is a new beginning of sorts. However there is the stress of living in a different culture, especially when one is black. The question is how does one cope and adapt to such a new environment? The author is also bisexual, and this adds another layer to the narrative as the narrator also debates when to tell people about his bisexuality.
The book is divided into small vignette style pieces, all focusing on a different section of the author’s life in Berlin and his past actions in London and Uganda. These range from the importance of therapy, racism, the different types of cakes one finds in Berlin to the minimalist architecture. At times it’s gently humorous, sometimes it poignant. Musa Okwonga is also a poet and there are some poets which also express the author’s feelings about Berlin.
By the end of the book Okwonga has to return to his homeland and manages to confront his fears and at the same time realise where the true roots lies. Yet, can someone who has lived abroad be able to adapt back to the place of origin?
In the End, it was all About Love is a compulsive read. The poems, witty memoir pieces are fantastic and Okwonga has an original style. As I said earlier if someone uses the third person and I enjoy it then this book is truly something special.
Considering that Annie Ernaux’s brief memoirs have dominated my reading over the last few weeks, I am in awe of the author who manages to squeeze a lot of topics using a limited about of space. In the End…. is also a memoir and is a mere 120 pages but there is A LOT going on. The thing is that Musa Okwonga writes so fluidly that the reader doesn’t even know that this is quite a rich book.
In the End.. starts with the narrator moving to Berlin, the native land being Uganda. We readers are already introduced to some of the themes: the author is nearing 41, the same age as his father when he died and the author has gone through a break up. Thus this trip to Berlin is a new beginning of sorts. However there is the stress of living in a different culture, especially when one is black. The question is how does one cope and adapt to such a new environment? The author is also bisexual, and this adds another layer to the narrative as the narrator also debates when to tell people about his bisexuality.
The book is divided into small vignette style pieces, all focusing on a different section of the author’s life in Berlin and his past actions in London and Uganda. These range from the importance of therapy, racism, the different types of cakes one finds in Berlin to the minimalist architecture. At times it’s gently humorous, sometimes it poignant. Musa Okwonga is also a poet and there are some poets which also express the author’s feelings about Berlin.
By the end of the book Okwonga has to return to his homeland and manages to confront his fears and at the same time realise where the true roots lies. Yet, can someone who has lived abroad be able to adapt back to the place of origin?
In the End, it was all About Love is a compulsive read. The poems, witty memoir pieces are fantastic and Okwonga has an original style. As I said earlier if someone uses the third person and I enjoy it then this book is truly something special.
January 7, 2024
Absolutely seeringly honest and beautiful. I loved being in Musa's Berlin and I appreciated the openness with which this is written and the interrogation of loneliness in the book, as well as the homecoming at the end, which was really about coming home to yourself above all.
January 7, 2025
Dieser Roman ist ganz viel in einem, aber für mich vor Allem ein (Hass-)Liebesbrief eines queeren, rassifizierten Mannes a Berlin.
Das hat ganz viel mit mir gemacht. Das war so intim und verletzlich und dadurch gleichzeitig so schön und brutal zu lesen. Wow.
Das hat ganz viel mit mir gemacht. Das war so intim und verletzlich und dadurch gleichzeitig so schön und brutal zu lesen. Wow.
December 21, 2021
Breathtaking. One of the best books I've ever read.
March 12, 2021
A beautiful book that is full of love.
February 3, 2022
i can’t begin to describe how good of a read this was.
January 16, 2022
Yep, yep, yep yep. Great read.
June 8, 2023
Berlin, Uganda and all the thoughts of doubt and grief and joy and love in between.
"When the loneliness comes, welcome it. By coming to you in a quiet moment, it is honoring you. Don't distract yourself from it - treat it as you would treat a dear friend who has travelled many miles to reach you."
"Life isn't about climbing as high as you can - life is about circles. It's about coming back to the places where parts of you belong [...]."
"When the loneliness comes, welcome it. By coming to you in a quiet moment, it is honoring you. Don't distract yourself from it - treat it as you would treat a dear friend who has travelled many miles to reach you."
"Life isn't about climbing as high as you can - life is about circles. It's about coming back to the places where parts of you belong [...]."
April 21, 2021
I initially ordered this book because of the limited-edition, screen printed cover, and it is stunning, but I could not have been prepared for the heartbreak within.
The book follows the narrator as he lives a mostly untethered life as a Black, British man living in Berlin (that raucous teenager). He’s scared about the money he doesn’t earn as a freelance writer and his own deep loneliness and even more scared about approaching his 40th birthday (the age his father died). “The trick with heartbreak is to outrun it. Grief is slow.”
This book is funny and sad and sexy and magic and beautiful and it loses a little of its energy when it leaves Berlin, but I didn’t mind. The poetry of the writing carries you along until it punches you right in the gut. Take your joy where you can.
(Also, if you want to “travel,” this is one of the most transporting books I’ve read in a long time. Berlin, baby! I felt like I was walking those new/old, littered, cafe-lined streets and it was wonderful.)
The book follows the narrator as he lives a mostly untethered life as a Black, British man living in Berlin (that raucous teenager). He’s scared about the money he doesn’t earn as a freelance writer and his own deep loneliness and even more scared about approaching his 40th birthday (the age his father died). “The trick with heartbreak is to outrun it. Grief is slow.”
This book is funny and sad and sexy and magic and beautiful and it loses a little of its energy when it leaves Berlin, but I didn’t mind. The poetry of the writing carries you along until it punches you right in the gut. Take your joy where you can.
(Also, if you want to “travel,” this is one of the most transporting books I’ve read in a long time. Berlin, baby! I felt like I was walking those new/old, littered, cafe-lined streets and it was wonderful.)
April 23, 2021
I completely understand why this book has such a high rating...it just wasn’t the book for me. Maybe I am too old to appreciate all the dating dilemmas and thoughts. I also didn’t enjoy the short chapters, which I found too brief and staccato to really get engrossed in what was being said. Lastly I didn’t enjoy the second person narration because I felt so disconnected...I wasn’t drawn in enough to feel addressed,
Some of the writing was wonderful. The first poem was fantastic and now and then there were sections that were truly brilliant.. the shortish section at the end was wonderful....most of the time though I felt a bit alienated. The end just seemed to be too miraculous a settling of issues.
Maybe this is a book to pick up now and then and read short sections rather than settle to in one go.
Some of the writing was wonderful. The first poem was fantastic and now and then there were sections that were truly brilliant.. the shortish section at the end was wonderful....most of the time though I felt a bit alienated. The end just seemed to be too miraculous a settling of issues.
Maybe this is a book to pick up now and then and read short sections rather than settle to in one go.
October 15, 2023
"As she speaks, your conversation reaching far into the early hours of the next morning, you slowly begin to understand that maybe the most important work you will ever do is the work you didn't notice, the type you did while you were running off somewhere obsessed with seeing your name on some imaginary bookshelf or festival billboard. It is the work of stopping and listening and caring, and you make a note not to get distracted from it too often in future."
January 15, 2022
"life isn't about climbing as high as you can—life is about circles. it's about coming back to the places where parts of you belong, and part of me will always belong here"
August 2, 2025
I really loved reading about Okwongas journey towards a better understanding of his grief and the relationship with his family. Also his observations about the special kind of hell that is German racism were very poignant and to the point. Its just that the Berlin that exists for Okwonga has nothing to do with the city I grew up in and it almost makes me cynical to think about all these big revelations he has about Berlin having lakes and trees instead of only tall buildings! One self aware chapter was the one about him being an early gentrifier and then having to deal with a second cycle of gentrification himself. Other than that I couldn’t really connect to his version of a city where it seems everyone is only there to stay for a couple of years to grab whatever they can and then leave to go someplace else, rinse and repeat.
July 5, 2023
I've never seen such a cohesive, sincere and resonating story about Berlin. It's a great book for a great city. Everyone (including me) had a "Berlin experience" moving in, but very few managed to build up the story on it. Movies, series and books about Berlin – no one will tell you so precisely about how is it to live here like Okwonga did.
The world needs to know about the racism in Berlin hidden behind the slogans like "In Berlin kannst du alles sein". Another provoking thoughts like "Berlin is not a bubble", "Berlin is not a grown-up city" are appreciated.
The narrative itself, writing about the past in present tense second-person was a very good idea that makes reader's sharper feelings and stronger emotions.
Decent 5 on it.
The world needs to know about the racism in Berlin hidden behind the slogans like "In Berlin kannst du alles sein". Another provoking thoughts like "Berlin is not a bubble", "Berlin is not a grown-up city" are appreciated.
The narrative itself, writing about the past in present tense second-person was a very good idea that makes reader's sharper feelings and stronger emotions.
Decent 5 on it.
September 10, 2025
Okwonga and I are very similar, Okwonga and I are very different. A couple passages could have been taken from my journal, others show different routes through familiar struggles, still others cover his Black life and the tragedies and honors of a Ugandan past. I can dive inside him and connect and wonder and feel because of such open sharing, this rending open of his self that he’s done for his readers. If only more of us could be so brave.
Recommended especially to everyone trying to grapple with Berlin as a city of escape, loneliness, community, immigration. Thank you Zoe for the loan.
Recommended especially to everyone trying to grapple with Berlin as a city of escape, loneliness, community, immigration. Thank you Zoe for the loan.
January 9, 2023
this a really needed book for me and berliners. specially being also someone living in berlin, some parts are so relatable it hurts, but it also gives a warm feeling that our experience in the city is shared, somewhat similar and we're all trying to make a sense out of it.
in the first half of the book, I got some "mr. palomar" by italo calvino vibes, which I loved: this narrative description that presents us with a subtly different and mindful way of perceiving the events around us and our actions. also enjoyed how the text is split between different places, being among those berlin, uganda and the author's mind.
in the first half of the book, I got some "mr. palomar" by italo calvino vibes, which I loved: this narrative description that presents us with a subtly different and mindful way of perceiving the events around us and our actions. also enjoyed how the text is split between different places, being among those berlin, uganda and the author's mind.
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April 26, 2024This book is full; Okwonga fits so much feeling and life into a mere 133 pages. This story (memoir? Novel? Poetry?) is an intimate look into the emotional nuance of his day to day routines, and then some - deeply moving and optimistic.
April 2, 2022
A brutally honest yet beautiful introspection, with all the perceptional precision and hard-hitting prose you come to expect from Musa. Stunning, you can almost feel every word
June 11, 2023
3.75 but rounding up. Really nice to get inside the brain of someone you listen to regularly and some really beautiful pieces in here. Plus, really think I need to move to Berlin.
September 16, 2024
Musa Okwonga is the guy, loved this
January 19, 2025
Great recommendation thanks Chris
August 23, 2025
3.5* Stern*innen 🤪
Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews