AiW Guests: Libby Gervais, Abi Taphouse, James Truscott & Maddy Holmes “Let’s actually think about who they are, not just what they are here to take from us”. Ekwa Msangi. Ekwa Msangi is a film director, writer and producer, who has… Read More ›
Tanzania
Review: A Reckoning with East Africa’s Colonial Histories – Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Afterlives’
AiW Guest: Florian Stadtler.
German colonial history remains little explored in fiction. Since the 1880s, Kaiser Wilhelm II, grandson of Queen Victoria, had the ambition to secure what was then termed Germany’s ‘Platz and der Sonne’, its place in the sun, Von Bülow’s infamous phrase in praise of Germany’s expansionist colonial policies. In popular historical discourse of German colonialism, attention tends to focus more on Deutsch-Südwestafrika…
Q&A with Abdulrazak Gurnah about latest novel ‘Afterlives’: “These stories have been with me all along…”
By AiW Guest: Judyannet Muchiri.
[…]
Judyannet Muchiri: This is a heavy story and yet there are moments of stillness, joy, love, and tenderness, if you will. I wonder how it is for you as a writer to capture this human existence in its totality as you have done in Afterlives.
Abdulrazak Gurnah: My interest was not to write about the war or the ugliness of colonialism. Instead I want to make sure the context in which war and colonialism happened is understood. And that the people in that context were people with entire existences. I want to show how people who are wounded by the war and by life itself cope in these circumstances. Using the unexpected kindnesses in the story, I wanted to show that there is potential for kindness in people and sometimes circumstances can draw such kindness from us.
Call for Submissions: Sawti Poetry Prize (Deadline: 10 August)
Sawti Poetry Prize | Tuzo Ya Ushairi Ya Sawti 3 Categories 3 Winners £500 Prize Each The Sawti Poetry Prize is open! The project organisers welcome submissions in the following languages; English, Arabic, and Kiswahili. This prize is a contribution… Read More ›
Call for Applications: Archives Workshop in Nairobi (Deadline: 7 June)
‘Another World? East Africa and the Global 1960s’ Week-Long Collaborative Archives Workshop Nairobi, 17-23 October 2019 ‘Another World? East Africa and the Global 1960s’ is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and will run from 1 September 2018 to 31 August… Read More ›
Short List Announced: Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize 2018
THE MABATI-CORNELL KISWAHILI PRIZE FOR AFRICAN LITERATURE Short List Announcement The short list for Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature was announced today December 17, 2018 by the board chair, Abdilatif Abdalla. The prize, founded in 2014 by Dr…. Read More ›
CfP: BARAZA: Swahili studies conference (Deadline for Abstracts: 15th September)
As part of Baraza: Swahili studies fourth annual day conference, taking place this year at SOAS on 27th October, you are invited to submit abstracts for short presentations addressing any aspect of the language, literature, translation, culture, philosophy or diaspora… Read More ›
Us Versus Them: A Review of Safe House
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu The essays in this anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (Dundurn 2016), address the very topics that have made Africa the centre of the world’s attention over the years for all the wrong reasons — disease,… Read More ›
CfP: 3rd EALCS conference, 24-26 August 2017, Dar es Salaam, deadline: 31 November 2016
The 3rd Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies (EALCS) Conference University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 24th -26th August, 2017 Theme: Cartographies of War and Peace in Eastern Africa Call for Papers, deadline: 31 November 2016 The… Read More ›
“All the talk in WWI seems to be about France…”*
Why were Africans consigned to the margins, sometimes altogether erased, when the drama of this war was narrated? (Okey Ndibe) Okey Ndibe‘s comment above reflected on the absence of acknowledgement for Africa and Africans in terms of a different global war,… Read More ›
Printing across borders: African newspaper cultures (ASAUK2014)
Following AiW’s opening readings.. 'stories that have never been shared': Alex Ntung reads from his work @AlexMvuka #ASAUK2014 http://t.co/v5IcceytDu— Africa in Words (@AfricainWords) September 09, 2014 whirlwind literary tour, from Uganda to Kenya to Nigeria, Rwanda in the first… Read More ›