Narrating Africa

Julia Augart, Madeleine Brook, Stefanie Hundehege, Nelson Mlambo

• Publisher: Basler Afrika Bibliographien
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9783906927732
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Index: Social Sciences

The project "Narrating Africa" began with an international symposium at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach in September 2019 discussing the project and how to narrate Africa from academic perspectives. Scholars from Germany, Switzerland, and Namibia engaged in intense discussions on a wide range of texts, genres, and research methodologies for two days. This book contains some of the papers presented at the 2019 symposium as well as further presentations on narrating Africa. Like the open-space project, this publication does not presume to give an answer to the difficult question of how to narrate Africa, but rather it seeks to offer further insights into the field with a special focus on Namibian narrations. This book is divided into four different sections. The first part aims to provide an introductory overview to and reflections of the project's main theme, "narrating Africa". In part two, identity is explored and re(considered) along various literary texts and with a particular focus on questions of gender. The third part focuses on oral literature and questions of time and memory. Finally, the last chapters are dedicated to the archive and colonialism, exploring a variety of archive materials in Marbach and in Windhoek and how they take up and shape facts and fantasies of Namibia and Africa.

Table of contents

• Introduction: Narrating Africa – Narrating NamibiaA Multifaceted Approach
• Instead of a Foreword#takeoverday – Introductory Words by the Director of the Marbach Museums
• 1 What Does “Narrating Africa” Mean?
• 2 Namibia’s Literary Landscape
• 3 Identity and Cultural Transplantation
• 4 The Conundrum of Personal Identity in Ndeshi Namhila’s The Price of Freedom
• 5 Narrating Black Women-Centric Spaces in Neshani Andreas’ The Purple Violet of Oshaantu
• 6 Feeling Colours: Synaesthesia as Political Practice
• 7 Anti-Corruption Messages in Oshiwambo Songs
• 8 Archiving Oral Narratives and Indigenous Knowledge in Mari Serebrov’s Novel Mama Namibia
• 9 The Written Legacy of Hendrik Witbooi (c. 1830–1905)Prophet, Politician, Philosopher, Warrior, and Diplomat
• 10 Anglicisation, Internment, (De-)Nazification
• 11 Lessons in Deception, Trickery, and ExploitationHans Grimm’s Novella “Aus John Nukwas Lehrjahren”
• 12 Reality and Escape
• 13 “Afrika im Hirn” The Colonial Fantasy of Gottfried Benn’s Ostafrika
• About the Authors and Editors