Ottmar Ettes Roman about Anton Wilhelm Amo

For racist reasons, Amo’s philosophy has long been silenced, and the life and work of the “first black philosopher” have numerous white spots.

She can only state a philosophy and cultural historical work, but overcome a “education” novel in the interaction of “fictional and imaginary”.

„My name is amo“ allowed to compare the possibilities and limits of analytical-pragmatic and fictitious-imaginary writing.t is displayed. This means that personal data can be transmitted to third -party platforms. You can find more information in the data protection settings. You can find this at the bottom of our page in the footer so that you can manage or revoke your settings at any time.

Appropriate to the complexity of life, it is a multi -perspective novel, both when it comes to narrative levels and instances such as the time and thematic diversity.

It is possible to imagine the biography of amo, from birth in today’s Ghana at the end of the 17th century, the robbery as a slave and the (documented) sale to the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the studies in Halle an der Saale, Magister and promotion in Wittenberg, teaching and almost trace -free time in Jena, as well as in 1748 the return to Africa and the end of life, about which there is a (short) report by a Swiss ship doctor, the “scope for different speculation”, which the novel Ette uses .

The game with the narrative perspectives succeeds in combining documented and imagined life.

In addition to stories and monologues of the protagonist Amo and some secondary characters (especially the chamber maid Maria), an omniscient first-person narrator dominates who does not deviate from the world with eternal life with eternal life, who does not deviate from the side throughout his life and comments .

The poodle draws attention to the core of the history of Amos and refers to Schopenhauer’s dog Butz, as the envelope drawing by Wilhelm Busch underlines.

From Zepp’s perspective, we accompany the development of Amo’s “Philosophy of Enlightenment between Europe and Africa” ​​and see how the “black philosopher” fails after the initial recognition of its immense talents on the everyday and university racism.

Thanks to the fiction, we follow amo to the courtyard of the educational monarch in Potsdam: the idea and drawings for the construction of Sanssouci should come from him, but Friedrich’s wars deny the hopes of peaceful education.

The poodle Zepp flees with his master, with whom he talks like Diderot’s “Jacques le fataliste”, finally to Africa, where Amo becomes a north-south wisdom of living together.

The last, which reminiscent of the “candids” of Voltaires, illustrate amo’s philosophy of the same validity of cultures, religions and languages ​​and are therefore a appeal of the project that (also) the ETTE proclaimed: “philosophizing without a permanent residence”, in which ” the stranger has become our own ”.

The exciting novel not only reads well, in the context of the current DHM exhibition, it also forms a current dialectic of the Enlightenment.