Askari, Gurnah's Afterlives, and History : Some Reflections

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Moy

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Uni

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The

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The history of African soldiers (askari) who fought in the German colonial army (Schutztruppe) in German East Africa (1890-1918) garnered new attention in 2020 when Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives was published. Gurnah’s Nobel Prize for Literature win in 2021 brought his body of work to much wider audiences. Where do fiction and history meet in his acclaimed novel? Reflecting on over two decades of historical research on the askari and their roles in the First World War in eastern Africa, I discuss how insights from Gurnah’s recent fiction have shaped my thinking about the askari and the German colonial past. I also situate Afterlives within a growing literary landscape of novels, short stories, and film that feature African colonial soldiers as central subjects.

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