Divided by the Word refutes the assumption that the entrenched ethnic divide between South Africa’s Zulus and Xhosas, a divide that turned deadly in the late 1980s, is elemental to both societies. Jochen Arndt reveals how the current distinction between the two groups emerged from a long and complex interplay of indigenous and foreign born actors, with often diverging ambitions and relationships to the world they shared and the languages they spoke.

The earliest roots of the divide lie in the eras of exploration and colonization, when European officials and naturalists classified South Africa’s indigenous population on the basis of skin color and language. Later, missionaries collaborated with African intermediaries to translate the Bible into the region’s vernaculars, artificially creating distinctions between Zulu and Xhosa speakers. By the twentieth century, these foreign players, along with African intellectuals, designed language-education programs that embedded the Zulu-Xhosa divide in South African consciousness.

Using archival sources from three continents written in multiple languages, Divided by the Word offers a refreshingly new appreciation for the deep historicity of language and ethnic identity in South Africa, while reconstructing the ways in which colonial forces generate and impose ethnic divides with long-lasting and lethal consequences for indigenous populations.

Van al die gebeure in die Kaapkolonie gedurende die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog het die teregstelling van Hans Lötter, asook dié van kmdt. Gideon Scheepers, die meeste emosie onder Afrikaners ontketen. Lötter en sy mederebelle in die Kolonie het die verbeelding van die plaaslike bevolking aangegryp en die Britte maande lank hoofbrekens besorg. Sy gevangeneming, verhoor en teregstelling deur ’n Britse vuurpeloton op Middelburg, Kaap, het groot woede en verontwaardiging veroorsaak en hom verewig as Boeremartelaar in die Afrikaner-volksoorleweringe. Nou word sy boeiende verhaal vir die eerste keer volledig vertel.

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.

The present volume is a pioneering collection of poetry by the outstanding Kenyan poet, intellectual and imam Ustadh Mahmmoud Mau (born 1952) from Lamu island, once an Indian Ocean hub, now on the edge of the nation state. By means of poetry in Arabic script, the poet raises his voice against social ills and injustices troubling his community on Lamu. The book situates Mahmoud Mau's oeuvre within transoceanic exchanges of thoughts so characteristic of the Swahili coast.