ABSTRACT
This book is about the space of a colony and how it was produced. It began as a study of the literature of the German colony of South West Africa between the years 1884 and 1915. It was my aim to demonstrate the active role which literature had played in structuring the experience of the colony. It seemed to me that if it could be shown that literature not only describes, but also helps to structure the forms of experience, then it would follow that it also plays an important role in structuring the experience of colonization, and hence the form of the colony itself. From the outset, therefore, I was concerned with a number of issues centering around colonization, representation, experience, and social form. Virtually from the beginning of this project, I have been convinced that spatiality is the concept which allows us to understand how these various aspects of colonialism interrelate.
