‘The Napf is a mythical mountain where one of the world’s many strandings of Noah’s Ark took place. Furthermore: three agricultural cultures developed and lived around the creeping mountain: the Emmental, the Entlebuch and the Hinterland, in other words – pronounced African – three ethnic groups, so close to each other, small and yet believing that they believed the only right thing.
The Napf is a mountain that once contained a lot of gold (…). I came to Africa just to realise in Southern Rhodesia (after 1980 it was called Zimbabwe) that the same thing was happening here in the mines of Shabani as once happened here in the Napf region.’
From Immensee to Africa. Lecture Kirchberg 2014
Trip to Namibia and Ghana in 2015. Photographer: Niggi Popp
In 2005, Lotta Suter published ‘At home all over the world. Al Imfeld – a biography’ (Rotpunktverlag). The biographical details are mainly taken from this book.
| 14.01.1935 | Birth in Lachen Regional Hospital, Canton Schwyz. |
| Spring 1936 | The family moves to the Roth farm in Ruswil, Canton Lucerne. |
| 1941 – 1947 | Attends primary school in Ruswil. |
| 1947 – 1954 | Attends grammar school at the Swiss Missionary Society Immensee SMB. |
| 1954 | Matura A, followed by a secret visit to Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene (Gabon). |
| 1955 | Joins the Bethlehem Missionary Society, studies philosophy and Catholic theology. |
| 1961 | Ordained priest. |
| 1961 – 1963 | Studies in theology in Rome as prescribed by his superiors. |
| 1963 – 1967 | Worked as a priest and studied sociology at Fordham University in New York and journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. Attended lectures by Paul Tillich at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. |
| 1964 | Participates in the civil rights movement in the USA around Martin Luther King. |
| 1966 | Several months travelling in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam |
| 1967 – 1969 | Missionary work in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), teaching philosophy in Malawi and agricultural sociology in Tanzania. |
| 1970 – 1971 | Lectureship in agricultural journalism in Nairobi, Kenya. Continued his studies in tropical agronomy. |
| From 1971 | Cultural mediator, freelance writer in Zurich specialising in Africa, development, ecology and urban planning. Founder and employee of i3w (Informationsdienst Dritte Welt) in Bern. Also co-founder of the monthly magazine Für eine offene Kirche (For an Open Church), co-initiator of the working groups Tourism and Development and Culture and Development, member of the critical agricultural organisation ipra, initiator of Dialog Afrika, a German-language series of African literature, book author, columnist, collaboration with radio stations, member of expert commissions of Swiss aid organisations. |
| 1976 – 1979 | Worked part-time at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute and part-time on the editorial staff of epd-Entwicklungspolitik. |
| From 1979 | literary mediator, first at the Berlin Africa Festival, then at the Frankfurt Book Fair and subsequently at the ‘Society for the Promotion of Literature from Africa, Asia and Latin America’ in Frankfurt. |
| From 1981 | he worked for the newly founded Swiss weekly WOZ. |
| 1983 | Christoph Eckstein Prize for ‘clarifying complex connections between the first and third worlds’ for his book ‘Zucker’. |
| 1984 | Award of honour from the City of Zurich for his efforts to promote dialogue between foreign cultures. |
| 1985 – 2000 | Lecturer at the School of Design in Lucerne. Countless lectures, talks and podiums. Evaluations in the Sahel, Guinea-Bissau and Rwanda; Goethe Institute assignments in Cameroon, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Lectures on agricultural culture in Witzenhausen, Gesamthochschule Kassel, co-operation at the International Literature Days in Erlangen. |
| 1990 | Zurich Journalism Prize and European Journalism Prize in Klagenfurt, both for the report ‘Power and Magic of the Maggi Cube’. |
| 1990/1991 | Tours with the Circus-Theatre Federlos in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Storytelling as ‘Griot vom Napf’ becomes more and more important. |
| 1992 – 2002 | Member of the Novartis Foundation research team in a pesticide study. ‘Safe and Effective Use of Crop Protection Products in Developing Countries’. Cotton farmers in India, Mexico and Zimbabwe were studied for 10 years. |
| 1996 | Writing workshop with the writer Zaynab Alkali in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria. |
| 1997 | Audience Award at the Central Switzerland Literature Festival for the short story ‘Buchstabensuppe’. |
| 1999 | Collaboration with Koyo Kouoh at Dak’Art, the biennial of modern African art. Consultancy for the exhibition South meets West, in Accra, Ghana, organised by Nàwáo. Research for WWF at Lake Malawi. Evaluation in South Africa for HEKS and SDC: Why do people returning from exile not stay on the land allocated to them? |
| 2000 – 2004 | Work on the manuscript of an African agricultural history. After completion, heart operation with 6 bypasses. 2003 the first year since 1967 without travelling to Africa. Work on the commemorative publication for the Novartis Foundation. Numerous appearances with stories and poems. |
| 2003 | In the evaluation team (together 2 African professors) Syngenta Foundation, Basel. Would like to know the status of a project started 5 years ago. CIMMYT, Mexico (FAO Maize and Cereals Research Institute) and KARI (Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute) are trying to breed a Bt maize based on local varieties and adapted to the climate zones without multinationals, which eliminates the corn borer. |
| 2005 | Literature Prize of the Canton of Zurich for ‘Blitz und Liebe’. |
| 2005 – 2016 | Numerous publications on mission and religion, as well as stories and volumes of poetry, combined with appearances as a storyteller and speaker. |
| 2014 | Pro Litteris prize for his life’s work. |
| 2015 | Publication of ‘Afrika im Gedicht’, the anthology he worked on for years, with the support of collectors and translators and his editor Lotta Suter. The fact that he had asked numerous poets to select poems themselves makes the selection special. Against all the scepticism of experts, the extensive book was a success. It was also the starting point for the 2022 exhibition ‘litafrika – Poesien eines Kontinents’ at Strauhof Zurich. www.litar.ch |
| 2017 | Publication of ‘Agrocity. The city in Africa’. Al Imfeld’s request to make this book available in English and Swahili was realised by his friends. |
| 14.2.2017 | Al Imfeld dies in Zurich. He is buried at the cemetery of the Immensee Missionary Society in accordance with his wishes. |