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Lauri Kubuitsile's novel The Scattering (Zerstreuung) is set in the time of German colonial history. It tells the story of two women united by the struggle for survival and deals with the genocide of the Herero in present-day Namibia. Lauri Kubuitsile succeeds in sensitively telling of inconceivable suffering and the simultaneous indomitability of the human spirit. The novel is inspired by parts of German history, told from a female perspective.

War has broken out in Southern Africa around the turn of the century. The Herero are fed up with the German occupation of their land.
Tjipuka, daughter of a Herero chief, and Riette, whose father is a Dutch settler, meet in British Betschuanaland, both badly scarred by the violence they had to live through. Tjipuka's husband Ruhapo joins the resistance against the colonial power overnight. The brutal suppression of the resistance by the so-called Schutztruppe is the cruel prelude to the suppression and annihilation of the Herero nation, ordered by a German general. Having survived the massacre at Ohamakari, Tjipuka flees into the desert with her child. At the same time in the Transvaal, the ambitious 25-year-old Riette is forcibly married to her coarse neighbour. When the latter is taken prisoner in the Second Boer War, Riette is also taken to a camp.

• Lauri Kubuitsile is a novelist and author of numerous children's books, which are compulsory reading in schools in Botswana and South Africa. She has won numerous awards and was a finalist for the Caine Prize in 2011. Her historical novel 'But Deliver Us from Evil' was nominated for the 2020 NOMMO Award. 'Revelations', a love story and justice thriller, was published in 2020. 'The Scattering' won the Best Foreign Language Novel Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates in 2017. A German production company has already acquired the film rights. Lauri Kubuitsile lives in Botswana.

Moderation: Britta Becker (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation). The event will be held in English.