Afrika fluten

By Christoph Keller

A thought-provoking novel exploring technology, power and the colonial imagination behind Europe’s grand engineering visions.

Afrika fluten follows Lovis on a journey across the western Mediterranean, from Marseille to Gibraltar and Sicily, while tracing the life and ideas of a Swiss engineer obsessed with a radical technological vision.

In the 1930s, Bruno Siegwart devoted himself to the Atlantropa project — a vast utopian plan to reshape the Mediterranean and generate energy for Europe. Later, he proposed diverting and damming African rivers, extending this vision into a new dimension of control.

As Lovis reconstructs these ideas, he confronts a belief in technological progress that echoes across generations — and within his own family.

Blending historical material with literary narrative, Christoph Keller explores the entanglements of technology, power and colonial imagination, revealing Switzerland’s often overlooked role in systems of exploitation.

Key Facts:

• Publisher: Rotpunktverlag, Zurich

• Language: German (materials available in EN/FR)

• Genre: Literary Fiction

• Themes: Technology, power, colonialism, history, environment

• Rights: Available