Die postkoloniale deutsche Literatur in Namibia (1920 - 2000)

Abstract

English abstract provided by author:

In the case of the German literature in Namibia these conditions are fulfilled. Namibia was one of several German colonies in the time of the German Kaiserreich (Empire) and had the name Deutsch-Südwestafrika (German South West Africa). Since the end of the 19th century it had been the goal of several immigration waves of German settlers, who established themselves in this part of Africa. German colonial rule unfolded an immense dominance in this country. In addition, the presence of Namibia is still influenced by German culture and customs: A group of about 20, 000 German speakers is still living there. They are descendants of the German settlers in Namibia, who called themselves Südwester (Southwester) for a long time. Since the independence of Namibia the term Namibia-Deutsche (Namibia-Germans) is used for this ethnic group. In the course of their history the German population in this country was always trying to preserve their cultural and linguistic characteristics: German schools and a large amount of clubs (Vereine) and societies guaranteed the survival of the German language in this part of Africa up to today. German literature is also part of this process of preservation, which develops in Namibia and is read there. The term colonial literature seems hardly appropriate, although literature of colonial times is still present and plays an important role in the present literature scene of Namibia. In addition the colonial age is present as topic in literature. One could rather speak of a post-colonial literature, but this term is insufficient as well, because then the colonial literature would be excluded, which is still read. And the term of German literature from abroad collides both with books from colonial times and books imported from Germany, whose contents are connected with Namibia, but which are not written and are not produced in Namibia. The gradual separation process and the process of becoming independent of this literature seems to be caused by Postcolonialism. From a historical point of view one could argue that former German colonial literature developped into German literature from abroad. This however would be a very simplified interpretation of the events. Actually a very dynamic and extremely complex historical process was necessary. In order to find an adequate description, a model is required, with whose assistance this process of separation can be described. In addition it is necessary to submit the term Postcolonialism to an exact examination in order to seperate it from models, which were developped for comparable phenomena in English literature. The Postcolonialism from a German point of view developped in its own way, due to the course of events in German colonial history. Only on the basis of this model, the peculiar cross-setting of colonial literature, postcolonial literature and German literature from abroad becomes evident