Pride and Prejudice: Leïla Slimani and Kjerstin Aukrust
French Moroccan Leïla Slimani‘s own family was the inspiration when she started her critically acclaimed trilogy: The Country of Others, Watch Us Dance and this year’s publication, J'emporterai le feu...
2 Jun 202555min
European epics: Jenny Erpenbeck and Mattis Øybø
With her deep and fearless portrayals of German and European history, Jenny Erpenbeck is a unique voice in world literature. Her authorship is widely considered to be among the most important of our t...
14 Apr 20251h 5min
The Empire Strikes Back: GauZ’ and Yohan Shanmugaratnam
«The security guard adores babies. Perhaps because babies do not shoplift.Babies adore the security guard. Perhaps because he does not drag babies to the sales.»In a Sephora-store on the Avenue des Ch...
24 Mar 202558min
The Winding River of Time. Elif Shafak and Marte Spurkland
«Water remembers. It is humans who forget.»A droplet of water finds its way from ancient Mesopotamia to a street urchin in 1840’s London and on to a Yazidi family in present day Iraq. Three people’s l...
10 Mar 202556min
My African Reding List: Jennifer Makumbi
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan British writer, known for her debut novel Kintu, as well as the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman. She has been awarded t...
3 Mar 202527min
The History of Panafricanism. Lecture by Hakim Adi
From intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois to activist Malcolm X, from heads of state Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi to poet Aimé Césaire and artist Bob Marley – they have all played a role in the history ...
17 Feb 20251h 5min
Abuse and survival: Neige Sinno and Hadia Tajik
In the wake of #metoo, the French literary scene has been marked by multiple stories of sexual abuse. Books like Vanessa Springora's Consent and Camille Kouchner's The Familia Grande have sparked deba...
10 Feb 202552min
A Brief History of African Dreaming. Lecture by Wole Talabi
For decades, African speculative fiction has weaved together past and future, combining myths and legends with space exploration and social criticism and broadening the scope of both African and specu...
5 Feb 202544min
