In the Other Direction Now

Navid Kermani is one of Germany’s most celebrated writers. His many awards include the Kleist Prize, the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Publishers’ Association and, most recently, the Thomas Mann Prize.Tony Crawford is a translator based in Berlin. His translations have been shortlisted for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize (Goethe-Institut, New York) in 2017 and 2022. Crawford’s translation of Navid Kerman’s Wonder Beyond Belief won the 2018 Schlegel-Tieck Prize (Translators Association/Society of Authors, London).

• Getting There 1Climate: In Southern Madagascar 21Eternity: In the Highlands of Madagascar 41Rhythm: With Nainako and His Friends in Antananarivo 49Development: In the Comoro Islands 59Mayotte: From a Barter Economy to the European Union 61Anjouan: Where the Supply Chain Begins 67Mohéli: Here, All You Have Is the Past 75Grande Comore: As It Was in Ancient Athens 87Energy: In Cabo Delgado, Northern Mozambique 103Peace: In Northern Tanzania 139Colonialism: In Nairobi 147War: In the Tigray Region of Northern Ethiopia 161Prayer: In Ethiopia’s Churches and Monasteries 179Jazz: With Mulatu Astatke in Addis Ababa 191Identity: In the Nuba Mountains in Sudan 199Holiday 229Acknowledgements 243

‘…among the most thoughtful intellectual voices in German today.’—The New York Review of Books‘Navid Kermani has established himself as one of Germany’s foremost public intellectuals. The child of Iranian immigrants, he has spoken of himself as belonging, like Heine or Goethe, to a tradition of German cosmopolitanism, open to the world and critical towards the nation.’ —The Times Literary Supplement‘Kermani is a great reporter – curious, open, and tireless’— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung