Holtzbrinck Lecture

A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths: A Novel in Search of the Other Berlin

Set primarily in 1930s Berlin, Maaza Mengiste’s novel-in-progress, A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths, reimagines the lives of some of Berlin’s marginalized populations as the Nazis came to power — African, Arab, Asian, Jewish, and many others. Mengiste’s research introduced her to a community of Berliners who owned or worked in some of the most popular clubs of the time, people who found themselves in the crosshairs of the Nazis’ campaign to Aryanize and who had to contend with devastating questions of collaboration or imprisonment or worse. Questions of belonging and survival are approached through the character of Milli, a mixed-race cabaret performer who finds herself caught in a conspiracy to locate her sought-after portrait painted by an exiled German artist, which the Nazis are desperate to make a centerpiece of their Degenerate Art Exhibition. How do lives nearly disappear completely from public memory, even ones that were drawn into the spotlight by Nazi propaganda?