As a child, Don Pablo Mulemba—the son of an Angolan contract worker and an East German woman—was constantly forced to explain the color of his skin. He naturally identified as German. He spoke the same dialect as everyone else, knew nothing but the Brandenburg countryside—and yet was repeatedly treated as an outsider. His parents had met in the GDR, but the East after reunification was no longer a safe place for them and their children. These were the “combat boot years”; their friend Amadeu Antonio was beaten to death on the open street in Eberswalde. The family was torn apart: The parents saw no future there and emigrated to Angola. Pablo, however, wanted to stay. At twelve, he went to a sports boarding school in Cottbus and, as a Black teenager, had to find his way. Today, he grapples with the crucial questions of identity, home, and belonging—questions that lead him on a journey with his father all the way to Angola.

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Don Pablo Mulemba’s story is also the story of reunified Germany: with its wounds, fractures, and the determination to forge a future nonetheless—told in a gripping, intimate, and authentic way.

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Don Pablo Mulemba, born in Eberswalde in 1995 to an Angolan father and an East German mother, is a journalist, reporter, and podcaster. He is the host of the podcast Springerstiefel (with Hendrik Bolz) about violence in eastern Germany after reunification, which won the German Audiobook Prize in 2025, and hosts the NDR program Atlas, which received the Grimme Prize in 2025. For his journalistic work, Don Pablo Mulemba was named one of the “Top 30 Under 30” by Medium magazine. 

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Anna Dushime was born in Kigali, attended school in England, earned her high school diploma in the Lower Rhine region, and studied in the Netherlands. As a columnist, she wrote regularly for the taz from 2019 to 2022 on dating, racism, and everything in between. She has worked as an author, host, and editor-in-chief for, among others, the award-winning satirical format Browser Ballett. Her show Der letzte Drink mit Anna Dushime (The Last Drink with Anna Dushime) was awarded the Grimme Prize in 2024. Her book 1000 Last Dates: How I Sought Love and Found Something Better was published in October 2025.

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An event presented by Literatur LIVE in cooperation with Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Thalia Bookstore, and Kino International.