»The day I was born, many stories of my life were born. Each one carries its own truth and wisdom. «
— May Ayim, Grenzenlos und unverschämt
May Ayim, Ghanaian-German poet, academic and political activist, was born in Hamburg in 1960, grew up in Münster and lived in Berlin from 1984, where she worked as a speech therapist, lecturer and student advisor. As one of the pioneers of the Black German movement, she was one of the founders of the Initiative Schwarze Deutsche und Schwarze in Deutschland (ISD) in 1986. She took her own life at the age of 36.
Ayim, author of numerous essays in anthologies and magazines, is co-editor and co-author of the classic book Farbe bekennen. Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out). Her work includes poems and essays that appeared in the volumes blues in schwarz weiss (blues in black and white) (1985), nachtgesang (nightsong), and Grenzenlos und unverschämt (borderless and brazen) (both 1997).
May Ayim, whose texts and poems have been translated into several languages, has made a name for herself at home and abroad with her research into the history and present of Afro-German people, but above all with her political poetry.
She is undoubtedly one of the most important poets and thinkers in a country that gives little room to non-Eurocentric perspectives. It is a great stroke of luck that her collected works have outlived the poet, who died young, and are thus able to carry her ideas and visions into the present day. For her poems have not lost any of their power and her essays have not lost any of their topicality. We can learn from May Ayim that poetry does not have to be elitist to be moving, and thinking does not have to be detached to convey truths.
