The Ake Arts & Book Festival, popularly known as the Ake Festival, has been running in Nigeria since 2012. Lovers of books and the arts attend book readings, panel discussions, poetry recitals, film screenings, theatre and music performances and lots more over the week of the festival. The festival this year has the theme “Blood Ties” and runs from November 22 – 25, 2023.
I will be a guest at the Ake Festival in November.
The NBO LitFest 2023, organised by Book Bunk, was hosted in venues in Nairobi from August 25 – 27, 2023.
I attended the festival and moderated the panel “The City as Muse” alongside panellists featured Damilare Kuku, Kevin Mwachiro, and Linda Musita.
The Litafrika: Artistic Encounters II, curated by Zukiswa Wanner, will be hosted in Zurich, Switzerland from June 16 – September 3, 2023.
“litafrika” is an open archive literary exhibition project in three parts (2022-2024) organised by Swiss partners Litar Foundation and Strauhof Zurich. It revolves around the central questions: “How do we read and narrate ‘Africa’ – a continent and its cultural diversity?” The exhibition trilogy follows a participatory process, where each edition will incorporate the themes and results from the previous edition to set a new focus. The project aims to be an intercontinental platform for a long-term dialogue with African and European authors, translators and publishers.
The first exhibition, “Poetry of a Continent” from 3 June – 4 September 2022, was curated by Christa Baumberger and Rémi Jaccard, in dialogue with partners from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and other countries. It set out to contextualise the European perspective on African literatures. The starting point was the monumental anthology Afrika im Gedicht (Zurich 2015) edited by Al Imfeld (1935–2017). The book covers the period from 1960 to 2014 and contains more than 550 poems from all parts of the African continent. Imfeld had a lasting influence on the promotion of African literatures in Switzerland over decades. His articles and appearances introduced countless writers from Africa to German-speaking readers and he helped set up a range of funding institutions. Although the anthology grew from a Eurocentric starting point, it was largely the writers themselves who selected the poems included.
The second exhibition “Soundscape Africa” in summer 2023 presenting current developments and tendencies curated by Zukiswa Wanner, kicks off on Saturday, June 16. Dubbed “Artistic Encounters” it aims to be an intercontinental platform for a long-term dialogue with African and European authors, translators and publishers. Wanner responds to the first part of the exhibition series with eight prose texts by contemporary authors. She shifts the emphasis from postcolonial poetry to contemporary novels to foreground the diverse stories of a younger generation of writers and artists. The featured artists are;
The exhibition launches on Saturday in Zurich with the following program;
Artistic Encounters
16 June – 3 September 2023
Venue: Strauhof Zurich
Vernissage 16 June Programme:
12:30pm – Welcome and guided tour by Zukiswa Wanner
5–6 pm – Welcome by Zukiswa Wanner (curator), Christa Baumberger (Litar) and Rémi Jaccard (Strauhof). Talk with the authors Virgília Ferrão (Mozambique) and Ondjaki (Angola, joining online), moderated by Zukiswa Wanner
6.30 pm – Guided tour by Zukiswa Wanner
For the full program please click here.
The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) is an annual festival that takes place in cities across historic Palestine. It’s an initiative committed to the creation of language and ideas for combating colonialism in the 21st century.
I attended the Palestine Festival of Literature 2023 in Palestine from May 20 – 25, 2023. You can read about my experience by clicking here.
I will be attending the Time of the Writer which is hosted in Durban, South Africa from March 14-22, 2022.
Time of the Writer, organised by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts. is a literary festival hosted in Durban, South Africa since 1996. The twenty fifth edition inspired by Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli, has the theme, “Beyond Words: Memory, Imagination & Conscience.” It will honour his legacy and commemorate the 60th anniversary of his autobiography, Let My People Go, which was published in 1962. It will critically reflect and engage with its participants to discuss whether Luthuli’s vision for a better South Africa has been served or been betrayed.
Last year I was honoured to be the keynote speaker at one of my favourite literary festivals in the world, Time of the Writer. This year, I am delighted to be a participant in conversation with my sisterfriend and Paivapo author Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang whose debut novel Daughters of Nandi is a beautiful work of fiction. And did I mention that she is the 25th Time of the Writer keynote? Nokuthula and I will also do a staged reading of the book with three other artists as directed by the genius Nondumiso Msimanga. It’s online and we will be delighted to have you in the audience.
Pa Gya! A Literary Festival was first hosted by the Writers Project of Ghana and the Goethe-Institut in 2017. Its name Pa Gya! comes from the Twi word meaning “to lift up” or “to strike flame” and it was aimed at igniting passion for the literary arts. After hosting writers from within Ghana and across the continent to much success; it was followed by another run in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
I am one of the featured guests of the festival this year in Accra, Ghana.
If you are in town please come by the events of the festival.
The Ake Arts & Book Festival, popularly known as the Ake Festival, has been running in Nigeria since 2012. Lovers of books and the arts attend book readings, panel discussions, poetry recitals, film screenings, theatre and music performances and lots more over the week of the festival. The festival this year has the theme “Generational Discordance” and runs from October 28-30, 2021.
On October 29, I talk to E.C. Osondu about his new novel which explores the courage, the tragedies and dreams that inspire young Africans to brave the Sahara and the Mediterranean to get to Europe. We will talk about the fascinating cast of characters, the stories of devotion, friendship and hope.