The Kids Are All Right: Futurity and Black German Childhood in SchwarzRund’s Biskaya (2017)

Abstract

SchwarzRund’s Biskaya (2017) is an “Afroqueer” novel that follows the travails of Tue, a queer Black German woman whose life is marked by the quotidian struggles of queer Black folx in Germany. However, Biskaya is also a work of fantasy, since SchwarzRund created an island (Biskaya) in the Bay of Biscay along the southern coast of Spain and France. In the novel Biskaya is home to African-descended people who have both voluntarily and involuntarily migrated to Europe as part of the labour market for centuries. In this article I examine the role of children in the novel’s discussions about Black German futurity. I argue that in Biskaya, SchwarzRund combines Afrofuturist aesthetics, Black feminist thought, and queer futurity to present us with a utopia that is not perfect but is in a state of becoming thanks to people like Tue, who realize the importance of being hopeful and working towards a better future. I focus on the role that kinship plays in this Black, queer futurity, because Tue’s relationships, both biological and non-biological, both with peers and with elders and juniors, are a key part of her transformation into being more hopeful about the future. While it is the importance of non-biological kinship ties in the novel that helps make it so queer, it is the intergenerational relationships that make the novel Afrofuturist. I look at how children in the novel allow SchwarzRund to pose several questions about futurity that can help unite Black Germans across genders, sexualities, and generations and empower all Black German folx to see themselves as agents of change.