I Keep My Shadow Light
A novel about feeling lost and learning how to belong in Berlin. Spot snippets around the city and sign up for free extracts.
The story follows the struggles and joys of a diverse group of characters all signed up for a German Integrationskurs. Maeve, Zehra, Viktor and Karam are the core four – all lost and lonely 20-somethings newly arrived in big bad Berlin. They keep going thanks to their dark sense of humour, semi-reliable friends, exciting parties, romantic distractions and warm classroom community. The book explores pressing issues about European and personal identity, and the relationship between the individual and the state. At its heart is the fundamental question – what does it mean to belong?
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In 2018, I attended an Integrationskurs and was struck by the German states’ assimilatory, rather than integratory, approach to imparting a sense of belonging to its newest arrivals. I wrote a critique of the course material and then transformed it into a novel because as well as pointing out the flaws in the system, I wanted to explore the emotional struggles of the integration process. The result is, I hope, an entertaining story with an underlying social commentary, spiked with black humour and rich with emotion.
