The white negro Wumbaba

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The white negro Wumbaba: Small handbook of interrogation is a book by the author and journalist Axel Hacke published by the publishing house Antje Kunstmann in 2004 with illustrations by Michael Sowa , which reproduces the interrogators of various song texts in a humorous way .

With over 120,000 copies sold in the first few months, the book is a bestseller and is described as a "cult" in some reviews .

In March 2007 a sequel to the book was published under the title The White Negro Wumbaba Returns: The Second Handbook of Interrogation. Another sequel appeared in early 2009 under the title Wumbaba's Legacy.

Emergence

Axel Hacke, 2009

After a few columns in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , the author Axel Hacke received more and more letters with interrogators that led to the book. He comes to the conclusion that “hardly anybody ever understands a song text correctly” and that these are only there to “provide people with material so that their imagination can work”.

The title itself is a misunderstanding of the line of text "(And from the meadows rises the white fog wonderfully") from the evening song The moon has risen by Matthias Claudius .

criticism

The title and cover met with criticism. The African Umbrella Association of Northern Germany e. V. described the use of the word “ negro ” as well as the “caricature of an African - bones in the hair, bulging lips and bast skirt - on the book cover” as “unacceptable”, they were reminiscent of earlier times believed to have been overcome. In 2013, Hacke presented his view of things in a gloss of ZEIT and defended himself against the accusations of racism.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ What is meant by the misleading title is not "of interrogation", but "of interrogation", cf. Duden [1] and Wahrig .
  2. ↑ Review at zdf.de. ( Memento of October 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Review at NDRkultur.de. ( Memento from September 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  4. ↑ Review at RadioBremen.de. ( Memento of December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ^ ADV-Nord eV: Statement on "The white negro Wumbaba". ( Memento from December 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). The text has since been deleted, the keyword “Wumbaba” and the keyword “Negro” no longer appear on the website. However, the statement of the African Umbrella Association of Northern Germany is (as of February 4, 2019) accessible in the web archive.
  6. ↑ Axel Hacke: Wumbaba's Legacy. How I wrote a harmless book - and was suddenly cursed as a racist. In: ZEIT.de. January 17, 2013, accessed February 4, 2019 .

literature

  • Axel Hacke, Michael Sowa: The white negro Wumbaba. Small handbook of interrogation. Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-88897-367-8 .
  • Axel Hacke, Michael Sowa: The white negro Wumbaba returns. Second handbook of interrogation. Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88897-467-0 .
  • Axel Hacke, Michael Sowa: Wumbaba's Legacy. Third handbook of interrogation. Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88897-555-4 .