Artworks

Before arriving at Passage Residency Caroline O. spent two months in Cairo researching her debut “VIV” (working title), a novel that explores the life of a woman in post-war Egypt and Germany. Shaped by political ideologies, the women’s movement, and postcolonial class structures, the novel traces promises of freedom within a multicultural diplomatic milieu, some of which prove hollow as unresolved history resurfaces. The narrative presents an idealised past between continents and gradually reveals the factual forces shaping the characters’ lives.
Concerned with themes of guilt, memory, grief and female suffering, the novel also playfully interweaves multiple languages and adventure tropes. It aims to move beyond the formal tensions between genre fiction and autofictional family writing through a poetic use of language.
Caroline has been working as a cultural journalist for several years, writing for major newspapers and media outlets. She studied history, rhetoric, and literature in Germany, the UK, and the US, and has worked as a teaching assistant.
At Willebadessen, she is working on chapters set in “Umm al-Dunya” before shifting focus to the “alte Bundeshauptstadt”.