When I took up this book, I thought I was going to be reading about Afro-futurism or a Sci-Fi on the continent. Re-writing Pasts however addresses sociological challenges from a much more downto-earth perspective. The futures being imagined by the authors are from the point of view of past and present realities. The futures are being projected from specific situations, critiquing recognisable scenarios and current political perspectives. Comprising 14 chapters, this book is dedicated to, and published in memory of, Professor Eckhard Breitinger (1940–2013), one of the most notable German scholars of the twentieth century, whose works on African Studies is highly regarded. Testimonies of the African literary theorists that make up the book indicate that Breitinger played a key role in the area of decoloniality in the scholarship of African studies. The interest in fostering South-South collaborations in the field and the focus on narratives that are of interest to African audiences first and foremost shapes the book's content and informs its tone. The ‘common ground’ between the literary essays, according to Susan Arndt, writing in the preface, are ‘the patterns of artistic visions’ which are ‘shaped and given impetus by the peoples’ economic, political, social technological and cultural realities’ (xi).

The first chapter, entitled ‘Bayreuth-Africa Summer School: Model for North-South/South-South Partnerships and Cultural Knowledge Production and Transfer’ by Christopher Odhiambo outlines how the summer school conceived by Eckhard Breitinger sought to re-set the power dynamics of knowledge transfer between the global North and global South. After the first summer school in Germany in 1999, the subsequent summer schools took place in different centres in Africa, including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Malawi and Botswana. This, according to the writer, allowed the participants to imagine the world from their centre. The idea supported initiatives which had direct impact on theatre profession in Africa, and destabilised Eurocentric policies around practices such as Theatre for Development. It also fosteredtrans-regional networks and cross-generational and cross-sectorial discussions between university scholars, graduate students, and theatre practitioners.