Television presenter Angélique Beldner and novelist Martin R. Dean's conversations about growing up Black in Switzerland, and about everyday racism in 2021.
How can we talk about and against racism?
An invitation to think, and to rethink.
For a long time it was unthinkable for Swiss television news anchor Angélique Beldner to speak out publicly about racism, not because she didn't experience it, but because she didn't want the colour of her skin to play a role in her life: So she kept quiet for a long time, excusing racist remarks, tucking them away and thus trying to escape the pain. But then came the summer of 2020, and she realized: enough is enough!
In The Summer I Turned Black, Angélique Beldner joins writer Martin R. Dean in a search for a language in which to speak about and against racism. Against the backdrop of their biographies, they ask crucial questions: Where does Switzerland stand on the issue of racism? What perspectives, what attitudes are there? For whom is what at stake?
Angélique Beldner and Martin R. Dean decided against looking away and remaining silent and in favor of speaking - with each other, in the dialogical form of this book, and to the reading public, who are invited to listen, to look, and to question their own positions.