Meet the headliners – Africa Writes 2019

Africa Writes is back this summer with an exciting programme showcasing the best new writing from the continent and the diaspora, Friday 5th July to Sunday 7th July at the British Library. As well as a vibrant day time programme of panels, launches, workshops and activities, we bring you these special headline events:

Our Bodies Speak Poetry

Friday 5 July, 19:00 – 20:30
£12 / £8 / £7.20 for RAS Members

An evening of intergenerational poetry and story-telling exploring the body as a site of power, possibilities and resistance. 

What does the body mean to you? Who draws the boundaries of what the body is or what it could potentially be? Join us for an evening of poetry and story-telling exploring the relationship we have with our bodies (poetical, physical, political, fantastical) and the shifting perceptions across generations. Line-up for the night to be confirmed.

Image: Koleka Putuma, photo by Andy Mkosi

Book tickets

 

 

New Daughters of Africa

Saturday 6 July, 19:00 – 20:30
£15 / £12 / £10 / £9 for RAS Members

Celebrating Black women’s writing in a landmark anthology

Twenty-five years after Margaret Busby’s landmark anthology Daughters of Africa, this new companion volume brings together the work of over 200 writers from across the globe – Antigua to Zimbabwe, Angola to the USA – to celebrate a unifying heritage, illustrate an uplifting sense of sisterhood and showcase the remarkable range of creativity from the African diaspora, particularly in the past 25 years. Comprising a wealth of genres and styles, this anthology speaks to the strong links that endure from generation to generation as well as the common obstacles that women writers of colour continue to face as they negotiate issues of race, gender and class.

In this event, four contributors to the new anthology, Bernardine Evaristo, Nadifa Mohamed, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ and Namwali Serpell, join Margaret Busby in conversation to celebrate the global sweep, diversity and extraordinary literary achievements of Black women writers.

Presented in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature.

Book tickets

 

Chigozie Obioma in conversation and The Fishermen

Sunday 7 July, 15:30 – 18:30
£20 / £18 / £15 / £12 for RAS Members

A double-bill of mythic Igbo traditions including a staged reading and a conversation with Chigozie Obioma

 

Man Booker shortlisted novelist Chigozie Obioma discusses his writing, Igbo mythology and stories of the everyday. In a conversation with readings from The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities, we explore blurred lines between myth and reality, thoughts on fatherhood, and reworking ancient Greek classics with Igbo cosmology. The evening opens with evocative staged reading of The Fishermen, adapted by Gbolahan Obisesan.

Chigozie Obioma was born in 1986 in Akure, Nigeria, and currently lives in the United States. He is an assistant professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His debut novel, The Fishermen, is winner of the inaugural FT/Oppenheimer Award for Fiction, the NAACP Image Awards for Debut Literary Work, and the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (Los Angeles Times Book Prizes); and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize 2015, as well as for several other prizes in the US and UK. Obioma was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2015.

The Fisherman by Chigozie Obioma
Adapted for the stage by Gbolahan Obisesan.
Based on the Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel by one of Africa’s major new voices, New Perspectives presents a staged reading Chigozie Obioma’s powerful allegory of brotherhood, vengeance and fate in a new adaptation by Fringe First-winning playwright Gbolahan Obisesan.

Tickets include both the play and conversation. Suitable for ages 16+

Image: Chigozie Obioma by Jason Keith

Book tickets

 

Weekend and Day tickets are now also available to buy via the British Library website, and the full festival programme will be announced in May.