VOICE AND VOICELESSNESS IN GENOCIDAL FICTION: THE CASE OF JASPAR UTLEY’S THE LIE OF THE LAND

Abstract

The literary depiction and perception of the Nama and Herero in the Nama/Herero genocide has been neglected by literary academics. The lack of representation, the dehumanisation of the Nama and Herero in this genocide, and by extension, the marginalisation of the locals, renders them voiceless. This paper analyses Jaspar Utley’s The Lie of the Land, a historical travel-writing narrative set in then German South West Africa (GSWA), present day Namibia, during what is now referred to as the first genocide of the 20th century which took place from 1904-1907. Using Marie Louise Pratt’s “imperial eyes” (1992), and more specifically, Elizabeth Baer’s (2019) “genocidal gaze”, this study shows that the narrator provides a typical white male racist view of Africa, and specifically, of the then German colony which invisibilizes the indigenous locals. The paper reveals that the gaze renders the locals voiceless, and the narration silences them just as the genocide brutalises them.