The Scattering

Against the backdrop of two of southern Africa's most brutal colonial wars at the dawn of the twentieth century, The Scattering traces the fates of two remarkable women whose paths cross after each has suffered the devastation and dislocation of war. "I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Hereros... Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people." South-West Africa, 1904: When General Lothar von Trotha, military commander of the German colonial forces, issues the extermination order, the Herero people are forced to flee into the desert, seeking safety in British Bechuanaland. Tjipuka, a young Herero mother, escapes the massacre with her baby but is later captured and sent to work in the death camps of Lüderitz. There, she must find the courage - and the will - to survive against all odds. The Transvaal, 1899: Riette's nursing ambitions are crushed when she is forced into marriage with an older neighbour. When he is taken captive and their farm is set ablaze under Britain's scorched-earth policy, she and his daughters must endure the horrors of the British concentration camps during the Second Anglo-Boer War. A haunting and deeply moving historical novel, in which Kubuitsile weaves an unforgettable tale of loss, resilience and a powerful reminder of history's forgotten atrocities.

LAURI KUBUITSILE is an award-winning writer and the author of numerous works of fiction for both children and adults. She has won several prestigious literary awards, including the Golden Baobab Prize for children's writing, an honour she received twice, the Bessie Head Literature Award, and the Botswerere Prize for Creative Writing. She was also a finalist for the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata. Her works are widely published and studied in schools across Botswana and South Africa. Lauri lives in Botswana and writes full time