This volume contributes rich, new material to provide insights into indigenous responses to the colonial empires of Great Britain (South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)) and Germany (Namibia) and explore the complex intellectual, cultural, literary, and political borders and identities that emerged across these spaces. Contributors include distinguished global scholars in the field as well as exciting young scholars. The essays link global-national-local forces in history by analysing how indigenous elites not only interacted with colonial empires to absorb, adapt and re-cast new ideas, forms of discourse, and social formations, but also networked with "ordinary" people to forge new social, ethnic, and political identities and viable social forces. Translated and other primary texts in appendices add to the insights.

This rich volume is dedicated to the astounding South African writer and literary critic Lewis Nkosi (1936–2010).

In this book, Nkosi’s celebrated one-act play “The Black Psychiatrist” is published together with its unpublished sequel “Flying Home,” a play on the satirically fictionalized inauguration of Mandela as South African president. Critical appraisals, tributes and recollections by scholars and friends reflect on the beat of his writing and life.

An ideal volume for those encountering Lewis Nkosi for the first time as well as for those already devoted to his work. Edited by Astrid Starck, a literary scholar, and Dag Henrichsen, a historian.