AiW Guests: Jess Irving and Jessica Smith Angela Wachuka is one of Kenya’s leading literary producers. In 2018, with Wanjiru Koinange, she founded Book Bunk. From 2008 to 2017, Wachuka was Executive Director of Kwani Trust, where she published Africa’s… Read More ›
Kwani Trust
RadioBook Rwanda: Bringing Together Text, Sound & Audiences
AiW Guest Lucky Grace Isingizwe To me, RadioBook Rwanda reads and sounds like a documentation of the Rwandan way of living. When I engage with each of the stories, I can see them expanding from the author’s eyes and making… 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 ›
CFA: RadioBook Rwanda Publishing Workshops: Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 March, Kigali
RadioBook Rwanda is an innovative publishing collaboration between Huza Press (RW), Kwani Trust (KE) and No Bindings (UK) supported by the British Council’s East Africa Arts programme. As part of this collaboration, we are pleased to invite applications for two… Read More ›
CfP: Special Issue: Postcolonial Text (Abstract Deadline: 16th March)
“Literary Networks and Digital Media in Contemporary African Literatures” Postcolonial Text, Double Guest Issue 13:3 & 13:4, 2018 The aim of this double guest issue of Postcolonial Text is to examine the notion of network(s) in relation to literary production… Read More ›
Call Out: New Writing & Artwork, RadioBook Rwanda, Deadline 25 January 2018
Huza Press (RW) invites submissions of short fiction and nonfiction by Rwandan writers and artwork by Rwandan and Kenyan artists for a new imprint created in collaboration with No Bindings (UK) and Kwani Trust (KE). This new book series brings… Read More ›
Finding Affiliations: Reading Communities, Literary Institutions & Small Magazines
AiW Guest Sarah Smit Earlier this year a group of academics, writers and literary producers came together in Cape Town for a workshop convened by Chris Ouma and Madhu Krishnan exploring ‘Small Magazines, Black Archives and Personal Histories’. This piece engages… Read More ›
Event: Novel Writers – Ayobami Adebayo ‘Stay with Me’, 9 June 2017, Spike Island, Bristol
Novel Writers Ayobami Adebayo, Stay with Me Spike Island, Bristol Friday 9 June, 6.30-8pm On Friday 9 June at 6.30pm, Ayobami Adebayo will be reading from and in conversation about her debut novel Stay with Me as part of Spike… 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 ›
Event: An Evening of New African Fiction, University of Bristol, 20 April 2016
An Evening of New African Fiction: With Doreen Baingana, Elnathan John, Billy Kahora & Irenosen Okojie 5pm, Wednesday 20 April 2016 University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, LT1 Free (no booking required) & refreshments will be provided Nikesh Shukla hosts a… Read More ›
From Aké to Kwani? Litfest: Ten Questions with Taiye Selasi
This year the Aké Review (the official journal of the Aké Arts and Book Festival) asked guests ten questions ahead of the festival – from whether they write in their mother tongue to what karaoke song they would like to sing. Two of these… Read More ›
From Aké to Kwani? Litfest: Ten Questions with Siphiwo Mahala
This year the Aké Review (the official journal of the Aké Arts and Book Festival) asked guests ten questions ahead of the festival – from whether they write in their mother tongue to what karaoke song they would like to sing. … Read More ›
Saah Millimono’s ‘Boy, Interrupted’: The Love Story from Liberia
AiW Guest Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire Today, I want to tell you a story. It is not my story. It is Saah Millimono’s story. Maybe it is actually not his story, it is the novel’s protagonist Tarnue’s story. And not just… Read More ›
Celebrating the Publication of Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s ‘Dust’
On 4 December 2014, in the grand setting of Marlborough House (Binyavanga Wainaina wryly explains away his lateness as a consequence of getting lost in Prince Charles’s bedroom) a polite, excited crowd gathers to celebrate the publication of Yvonne Adhiambo… Read More ›
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s ‘Kintu’ Made Me Want to Tell Our Stories
AiW Guest Nyana Kakoma When upcoming writers like me hear that Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi started writing Kintu in 2003, we despair. We reach into that part of our brain that always doubts that we will make it at this writing… Read More ›
Walter Bgoya: Interview and Review of his Keynote Speech, ASAUK 2014
‘50 Years of Independence: Reflections on the Role of Progressive African Intellectuals’ As Walter Bgoya took to the microphone to begin his keynote speech at the African Studies Association UK’s biennial conference, I was immediately struck by his wisdom and… Read More ›
‘Beyond the Novel: Developing Contemporary African Writing’: Review, Africa Writes 2014
Saturday 12th July found me seated in the conference auditorium of the British Library, expectantly awaiting the start of a panel entitled ‘Beyond the Novel: Developing Contemporary African Writing’. Comprising one of the many events scheduled at Africa Writes 2014,… Read More ›
Roundtable on African Popular Culture and Public Space: Review
AiW Guest Rehab Abdelghany The 3rd African Popular Cultures Workshop hosted at the University of Sussex concluded with a roundtable that brought together six academics and creative writers, who research, write from and about different parts of the African continent…. Read More ›
3rd African Popular Cultures Workshop, University of Sussex, 31 March 2014
The School of English and the Sussex Africa Centre Postgraduate Committee invite you to the 3rd African Popular Cultures Workshop at the University of Sussex Monday 31st March 2014, 11.00am – 6.30pm with Professor Karin Barber (University of Birmingham), Professor… Read More ›
‘Dust’ by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor – review
AiW Guest jalida scheuerman-chianda The second time I met Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor she was sitting at a round wooden table in the garden of the Kwani? office in Nairobi, waiting to be interviewed on the launch of her debut novel… Read More ›