In Angola, Gabriele Riedle encounters two Queens, meets militia members (former criminals) in a slum that is closed down on a regular basis, and feels a well-known Angolan journalist’s frustration of rooted in the whiteworld’s lack of interest in Africa. Unlike most reporters today, Riedle does not write in the present tense, which conveys a sense of immediacy—but rather in the “literary” past tense. She composes her sentences just like music; because she is convinced that documenting “what is” is impossible, and that each report makes a conscious or unconscious allusion to narrative traditions such as adventure novels. To her current book, a poetic novel about the work of war reporters, she even adds the subtitle “Eine Art Abenteuerroman” (A Type of an Adventure Novel).

Gabriele Riedle
Publishes reports from all continentsauthor of several novels

In conversation with
Daniel Puntas Bernet
Editor in chief of REPORTAGEN, Bern