KUVAKA UKAMA – BUILDING BRIDGES Bridges connect two entities divided by a gap. Flora Veit-Wild has been a traveler of worlds, in the flesh and in the mind. Her insistence on the emphatic modernity of African literatures have influenced academics and artists from all walks of life, as well as shaping her own research, that includes topics such as surrealism, codeswitching, “new orality”, discourses of body, gender, sexuality, madness and violence, questions of cultural translation and the history of scholarship. This volume compiles a variety of scholarly, literary and artistic contributions from her friends and colleagues in Germany, Zimbabwe and other countries. Our connections to others are bridges of the metaphorical kind, crossing the chasms of intersubjective differences – Building Bridges can be translated into Shona as kuvaka ukama, literally “building relations”. The various contributions to this volume reflect on how Flora has reached out and formed relations and alliances with a great variety of people. She has strongly influenced many upcoming scholars and has contributed immensely to the development of the studies of African literatures, especially here in Berlin, Germany. CONTRIBUTORS Anne Adams, Ulrike Auga, Jane Bryce, Chirikure Chirikure, Lutz Diegner, Sule Egya, Susanne Gehrmann, Liselotte Glage, Ricarda de Haas, Helon Habila, Julius Heinicke, Hilmar Heister, Annekie Joubert, Eileen Julien, Tobias Robert Klein, Maria Kublitz-Kramer, Kahiudi Claver Mabana, Christine Matzke, Chiedza Musengezi, Dirk Naguschewski, Shumirai Nyota, Marion Pape, Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, Lesego Rampolokeng, Frank Schulze-Engler, Bettina Weiss, Tobias Wendl.