group. A film documentary, Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992, covers her life and this period of growing Afro-German identity in the culture. After a visit to Ghana, where she met her paternal family, Opitz returned to Germany and trained as a speech therapist. She wrote a thesis on ethnocentrism in the discipline. After more travels, she settled in Berlin in 1984, lecturing at the Free University of Berlin. She continued to write articles and poetry exploring the issues of multi-ethnic peoples in Germany and personal identity. In 1992 she took her father's name Ayim, and used May Ayim as her pen name. She was active as an educator and writer, taking part in many conferences and publishing a poetry collection, Blues in schwarz-weiss (Blues in Black and White, 2003 in the US). Death After working strenuously to prepare for Black History Month in 1996, Ayim suffered a mental and physical collapse. She was admitted to the psychiatric ward of the Auguste Viktoria Hospital in Berlin in January 1996. The doctors eventually diagnosed her as having multiple sclerosis. They stopped her medication, which had been based on believing she had severe depression, and discharged her in April 1996. Continuing to struggle with depression, Ayim was readmitted in June following a suicide attempt. Discharged again in July, she committed suicide on 9 August by jumping from the 13th floor of a Berlin building. Legacy and honours The 1997 film documentary Hoffnung im Herz ("Hope in My Heart: The May Ayim Story"), directed by Maria Binder, was made about her. 2004: the May Ayim Award was founded to honour her. Presented annually, it is the first Black German international literature award. 2011: A street in Berlin Kreuzberg, formerly named after a German colonialist, was renamed in her honour as May-Ayim-Ufer. Cultural references May Ayim's poem "They're People Like Us" is cited in Paul Beatty's 2008 novel Slumberland. Her writing (as May Opitz) is included in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa. She is the subject of Linton Kwesi Johnson's elegiac poem "Reggae Fi May Ayim" on his 1999 album More Time. See also Afro-Germans Jennifer Teege References External links "May Ayim Teil 1". YouTube video. Marion Gerlind, "May Ayim’s Legacy in World Language Study", FLANC Newsletter, Spring 2012. 1960 births 1996 deaths German activists German women activists German women poets German adoptees German people of Ghanaian descent Suicides by jumping