Where are you from?

Ulla Dentlinger�s life history begins in poor, rural apartheid Namibia of the early 1950s. Growing up in the Rehoboth Baster territory, she early on discovers that her parents are not prone to reminisce about their family�s past. The most mundane information about their background is guarded much like a state secret. As a child, she begins to panic at being asked the question so normal to others: Where are you from? Only in later years it dawns on her that she had to be a �Coloured�. The sense of conflict increases immeasurably. By then she is growing up in apartheid South Africa, but now in a �white� suburb of Cape Town. She goes to a �white� school and bears herself in a German fashion. She and her family had, in fact, jumped the colour line.