Rude Girl

Short-listed for Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2023 and Hamburg Book of the Year 2023.

The white German graphic novelist Birgit Weyhe meets Priscilla Layne, an African American professor of German studies. Growing up, Priscilla is too white for her Black classmates, too Black for the white kids. She becomes a rude girl, discovering a community where she feels valued. But how should Birgit Weyhe tell a life story like Priscilla's?The white German graphic novelist Birgit Weyhe teaches at a US college through an academic exchange programme. At a conference of American Germanists in the Midwest, she is accused of cultural expropriation. Is she exploiting her privileges as a white writer when she tells stories about Black people? She meets Priscilla Layne, an African American professor of German studies with Caribbean roots. Growing up, Priscilla is labelled an 'Oreo': too white for her Black classmates, and too Black for the white kids. Rebelling against everything and everyone all at once, she joins the skinhead movement and becomes a rude girl, discovering a community where she feels valued. Music, clothes, hair, food, class, race, gender, education - her life and identity are a complex composite. But how should Birgit Weyhe tell a life story like Priscilla's? What mistakes does she need to avoid? The act of storytelling itself becomes its own narrative layer in this unique graphic biography.