Namibia’s colonial history casts a long shadow over the country’s present. Contemporary authors and artists confront the legacies of German and South African colonial rule and engage creatively with the persistent remnants of the past. In their works, the archive remains both an invaluable and fraught resource for accessing obscured histories.

In Troubling Archives: History and Memory in Namibian Literature and Art (Transcript, 2025) Julia Rensing examines how writers and artists from Namibia and South Africa navigate archival silences, omissions, and power structures to renegotiate historical narratives and address intergenerational trauma. Their creative practices challenge conventional understandings of archives and forms of commemoration, highlighting the diverse experiences that shape Namibian society and memory cultures.

This book is available open access. Download a free PDF from the publisher's website.

Some of the artists and artworks discussed in this book and interview include:

Ulla Dentlinger's Where are you from? ‘Playing White’ under Apartheid
Tshiwa Trudie Amulungu's Taming My Elephant
Vitjitua Ndjiharine, including the installations Ikono Wall/Mirrored Reality and s We Shall Not Be Moved
Nicola Brandt, including The Crushing Actuality of the Past and the video installation Indifference
André Brink’s novel The Other Side of Silence

Julia Rensing is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025).

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