The Scattering

A Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Recommendation

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 Luderitz. 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.
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.

A haunting and deeply moving historical novel, Kubuitsile weaves an unforgettable tale of loss, resilience and a powerful reminder of history's forgotten atrocities.

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