Don Pablo Mulemba

Home of the Dog—The East, My Family, and Other Mysteries. A Childhood in East Germany and an Extraordinary Family History of Migration.

As a child, Don Pablo Mulemba—the son of an Angolan contract worker and an East German woman—constantly had to explain the color of his skin. He naturally saw himself as German. He spoke the same dialect as everyone else, knew nothing but the Brandenburg countryside—and yet was repeatedly treated as an outsider. His parents had met in the GDR, but the East after reunification was no longer a safe place for them and their children. Those were the “combat-boot years”; their friend Amadeu Antonio was beaten to death on a public street in Eberswalde. The family was torn apart: His parents saw no future there and emigrated to Angola. Pablo, however, wanted to stay. At twelve, he went to a sports boarding school in Cottbus and, as a Black teenager, had to find his own way. Today, he grapples with the crucial questions of identity, home, and belonging—questions that lead him on a journey with his father all the way to Angola.

Don Pablo Mulemba’s story is also the story of reunified Germany: with its wounds, fractures, and the determination to forge a future nonetheless—told in a gripping, intimate, and authentic way.

Don Pablo Mulemba, born in Eberswalde in 1995 to an Angolan father and an East German mother, is a journalist, reporter, and podcaster. He is the host of the podcast *Springerstiefel* (with Hendrik Bolz) about violence in East Germany after reunification, which won the German Audiobook Prize in 2025, and hosts the NDR program*Atlas*, which received the Grimme Prize in 2025. For his journalistic work, *Medium* magazine named Don Pablo Mulemba one of the “Top 30 Under 30.” *Hundeheimat* is his first book.

The event will take place at the Waschhaus Klub (1st floor) and, unfortunately, is not wheelchair accessible.