“What does it mean when you don’t think you have a mythology?” Marlon James is increasingly preoccupied by legacy. “I return to Greek tragedy before every book I write. I look for answers and Greek tragedy provides them. Or, better… Read More ›
Reviews – Events
Gaël Faye in Conversation: A Review
AiW Guest: Akua Banful. I walked into the large room on the second floor of Albertine, the French consulate affiliated bookstore in New York, and immediately felt the energy and anticipation of the crowd. The old, the young, the francophone… Read More ›
Conserving culture and pushing boundaries in Somaliland: Hargeysa International Book Fair 2018
AiW Guest: Caitlin Pearson, Africa Writes Go through the gates of the Xaranta Dhaqanka, the Hargeysa Cultural Centre in Somaliland’s capital, and you’ll encounter a courtyard of small buildings. To your right is the Cultural Centre’s library, housing a wide-ranging… Read More ›
“Reading is a collective pursuit”: Open Book Festival Review
AiW Guest: Megan Ross. Before I write this review I’ll… Share my Open Book diet Too. Much. Caffeine. All the dry red at the Fugard bar. Half a bottle of single malt whiskey (and its accompanying hangover) that Helene Prinsloo… Read More ›
‘The archive of my life’: The UK pre-launch of Akwaeke Emezi’s autobiographical novel ‘Freshwater’ at Africa Writes 2018
AiW Guest: Sana Goyal. It’s the Saturday afternoon of the Africa Writes weekend in London — the 2018 edition. Sitting in the second row of the Auditorium at the British Library, I hear several excitable voices over my shoulder. And… Read More ›
A People-centred Approach to Literary Activism in 21st Century Africa: Nii Ayikwei Parkes on Arts Management and Literary Activism at Writivism 2017
AiW Guest Madhu Krishnan. AiW note: This week in the run up to the 2018 Writivism festival, the Arts Managers and Literary Activists Network (AMLA) hosted their third annual workshop bringing together early career academics and Africa-centered literary producers. It… Read More ›
Building an Archive – Voices from the Panel “Loving Womxn: Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing” at the 2018 Africa Writes Festival
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. It was the second day of the Africa Writes Festival, a week ahead of Black Pride. The heatwave beat on in London whilst, in the British Library, the animated festival crowd buzzed and mingled to and… Read More ›
Flexible Forms and Publics: Moradewun Adejunmobi and Stacy Hardy on Small Magazines
AiW Guest Penny Cartwright A place for ‘extended curiosity, new adventures, critical thinking, daydreaming, socio-political involvement, partying and random perusal’: so Stacy Hardy, of South Africa’s Chimurenga, imagines the small magazine. Speaking as part of a closing keynote conversation hosted… Read More ›
Archiving Small Magazines: AWA Digitisation and Exhibition in Montpelier
AiW Guest Aurélie Journo AiW note: This Guest post is part of a series of articles publishing on Africa in Words that come out of conversations between a new interdisciplinary network of researchers and literary producers examining the circulation and production… Read More ›
Finding Fictions, Forging a Feminist Fantastic: Reflections on ‘This F-Word’, the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival (Abeokuta, 14-18 November, 2017)
By Matthew Lecznar Last November, I had the pleasure of attending the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival. Organised by the Lagos-based Book Buzz Foundation, Aké is a five-day cultural extravaganza that takes place in and around… Read More ›
Review: African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’) exhibition
AiW Guest Connor Pruss. The Quai Branly Museum (Musée du Quai Branly) in Paris currently features the exhibition “African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’)” from Jan. 31st – Nov. 12th, 2017. In the introduction, the curators propose to challenge the preconception… Read More ›
Q&A: The Importance of Writing and the Benefits of Travel – An interview with Iman Verjee at Open Book 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. Iman Verjee is a novelist living in Nairobi, Kenya with two novels published by the award-winning independent, Oneworld Publications: Who will Catch us as we Fall (2016) and In Between Dreams (2014). Both novels were promoted… Read More ›
Voices from the Seventh Edition of the Open Book Festival, Cape Town, 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. One of the most exciting, world-class literary events, the Open Book Festival, takes place annually at the start of spring in Cape Town, South Africa, spear-headed by the independent bookshop, The Book Lounge, and the renowned Fugard… Read More ›
Okey Ndibe’s orchestra
AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso “I am a student of Chinua Achebe,” Okey Ndibe says near the end of his reading at University of Lagos’ Faculty of Arts last July. “But as a writer, my temperament is between [Wole] Soyinka, Achebe… Read More ›
The global concerns of southern African photography
AiW Guest: Oyedepo Olukotun It is interesting to observe that a number of the 2017 summer exhibitions in London, UK, have coalesced around the storyline of Blackness. On the forefront with this storyline is Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation:… Read More ›
“German Colonialism: Fragments Past and Present” at The Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 14 October 2016 to 14 May 2017
AiW Author: Katarzyna Kubin “In the late 19th and early 20th century, the German Empire was one of the largest European colonial powers,” states the Foreword to the catalogue for the Deutsches Historisches Museum’s exhibit on German colonial history. Unlike… Read More ›
After a long break, Nigerian Theatre picks up
AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso Actor and performance coach Toyin Oshinaike is teaching 80 thespians in an actors’ workshop at the Lagos Theatre Festival (28 Feb-5 March); all on their feet and attentive, they form a large rectangular ring around him…. Read More ›
Innovative exhibition puts African cities on the fashion map
AiW Guest: Harriet Hughes Fashion Cities Africa, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to presenting contemporary African Fashion design, opened at Brighton museum in April 2016. The aim of the exhibition is to present the fashion cultures of four African… Read More ›
“I write what I like”: Aké Arts & Book Festival 2016 in Abeokuta, Nigeria
AiW Guest: Nathan Suhr-Sytsma The fourth incarnation of the Aké Arts & Book Festival took place 15-19 November 2016, in Abeokuta, Nigeria, the birthplace of Wole Soyinka, and shares a name with Soyinka’s classic memoir of his childhood, Aké. The… Read More ›
Les Blancs – Farber’s production provoked reflection on innocence, the personal and the political, and choosing sides
AiW Guest Katarzyna Kubin The National Theatre’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play, Les Blancs, directed by Yaël Farber, involved phenomenal use of sound, music and lighting, live fire on stage, and a nuanced mastery of the smallest details: from the… Read More ›
