Paper short abstract:

It is notorious that knowledge about Africa is not very sophisticated in German-speaking regions. At the same time, there are some popular images that prove to be quite persistent. This paper aims to approach some of these images on the basis of two texts by Bartholomäus Grill and David Signer.

Paper long abstract:

The introductory text to this panel raises the question if there is a specific "German" image of Africa and, implicitly at least, reveals a certain unease about any such image because of the simplifications with regard to Africa. Furthermore, it attributes great importance to a certain type of text for the shaping of this image: the reporatge in form of a book. In this paper, I will deal with the texts of two authors who can claim a certain prominence in German-language media coverage of Africa: Bartholomäus Grill, over decades one of the most important journalistic voices on Africa in German quality papers, and David Signer, who has contributed from a slightly different angle as correspondent for Swiss newspapers to this image in the German-speaking countries. It is my aim to have a look at the representations of the continent that appear in some of their texts, relate them to each other and their possible contexts, and reflect on them, drawing on my own experience working for six years in Abidjan.