This wide-ranging collection deals with the dynamics of current developments in literature, language, and culture in Kenya and Tanzania. It testifies to a spirited exchange of ideas between writers and academics and promotes transdisciplinary dialogue among several academic fields - anglophone and Swahili studies, literary studies and linguistics, East African and German academic discourse, Kenyan and Tanzanian perspectives. The contributions create a 'contact zone' of their own that will generate productive impulses for transdisciplinary research and allow readers to gain new insights into trajectories of Swahili and anglophone writing in East Africa. Topics covered include literary language choice and translation, popular fiction and codeswitching, Swahili hip-hop texts, HIV/AIDS discourse, the advance of 'Sheng' and 'Engsh' in literary-linguistic space, contemporary women's literature in Kenya, and special studies of Abdulrazak Gurnah and David G. Maillu. CONTRIBUTORS MIKHAIL D. GROMOV * ABDULRAZAK GURNAH * SISSY HELFF * LILLIAN KAVITI * EUPHRASE KEZILAHABI * SAID A.M. KHAMIS * ALDIN K. MUTEMBEI * YVONNE ADHIAMBO OWUOR * UTA REUSTER-JAHN * ALINA N. RINKANYA * GABRIEL RUHUMBIKA * CLARISSA VIERKE * KYALLO WADI WAMITILA

African-Asian interactions contribute to the emergence of a decentred, multi-polar world in which different actors need to redefine themselves and their relations to each other. Afrasian Transformations explores these changes to map out several arenas where these transformations have already produced startling results: development politics, South-South cooperation, cultural memory, mobile lifeworlds and transcultural connectivity. The contributions in this volume neither celebrate these shifting dynamics as felicitous proof of a new age of South-South solidarity, nor do they debunk them as yet another instance of burgeoning geopolitical hegemony. Instead, they seek to come to terms with the ambivalences, contradictions and potential benefits entailed in these transformations - that are also altering our understanding of (trans)area in an increasingly globalized world. Contributors include: Seifudein Adem, Nafeesah Allen, Jan Beek, Tom De Bruyn, Casper Hendrik Claassen, Astrid Erll, Hanna Getachew Amare, John Njenga Karugia, Guive Khan-Mohammad, Vinay Lal, Pavan Kumar Malreddy, Jamie Monson, Diderot Nguepjouo, Satwinder S. Rehal, Ute Roeschenthaler, Alexandra Samokhvalova, Darryl C. Thomas, and Sophia Thubauville.