01 Jun 2016

Lauri Kubuitsile has published a book  titled: The Scattering, which is to be launched June 29.

The book is a historical novel centred around the German-Herero War and the resulting genocide.

“The Scattering is a moving and intimate novel providing a fascinating glimpse into the indomitability of the human spirit,” a press release has stated.

According to the release, the story traces the fate of two women whose paths cross after each suffered the devastation and dislocation of war. 

“Kubuitsile has crafted an ambitious, powerful and poignant historical novel that brings to live a very important period, the realease states.

“When I set out to write this book, I thought about how horrible tragedies like war are often given to us in numbers: Up to 100 000 Herero people died during the war and the purposeful genocide that followed. The mortality rate in the concentration camps was between 45-75%, with 12-18 people dying every day. Only about a 1000 Herero people made it to Botswana,” she said.

The story is set against the backdrop of Southern Africa’s colonial wars at the dawn of the 20th century. These are numbers and they are tragic, but it’s easy for numbers to flow over your head without impacting your heart. You feel war and tragedy in your heart when it is brought down to the individual life. That’s what I wanted. When I was writing I thought about books like Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun about the Biafran War, and Aminatta Forna’s bookMemory of Love about the war in Sierra Leone. Both of those amazing novels made war real through individual stories not through battle plans and statistics on causalities. I wanted to create a novel like that.” said Kubuitsile.

The launch is being organised in conjunction with the poetry group Poetavngo. There will be a reading from the book by Lauri Kubuitsile and a book signing.  Ends