All Animals Are Not Equal. NoViolet Bulawayo and Priya Bains
In the novel Glory, we find ourselves in the fictional country Jidada, which is peopled with all kinds of animals; bleating sheep, a confident pig preacher, vicious dogs making up the country’s securi...
24 Sep 202352min
The Writer as Witness. Joyce Carol Oates and Karin Haugen
Joyce Carol Oates is one of the world’s greatest living writers, and is frequently cited as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature. It is truly a momentous occasion that Oates will visit the Ho...
2 Sep 20231h 14min
A Quiet Revolution. Abdulrazak Gurnah and Leila Aboulela
In 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first African-born writer to receive the award in close to 20 years. The Swedish Academy awarded Gurnah the prize «for his un...
29 Aug 20231h 2min
What Should Art Be? Lecture by Joyce Carol Oates
Do artists have a social responsibility? Should art be «pure» and not related to ethical or political issues? What, exactly, is the role of art? These are questions that the American author Joyce Caro...
26 Aug 202354min
My African Reading List: Masande Ntshanga
Masande Ntshanga is a writer and poet, an editor of New Contrast Magazine and a teacher of creative writing. For his debut novel The Reactive, he was awarded the Betty Trask Award, while his second no...
6 Aug 202334min
My African Reading List: Maaza Mengiste
Maaza Mengiste is a writer, photographer and teacher of creative fiction at Wesleyan University. Her 2010 debut novel, Beneath the Lion's Gaze, depicts the bloody revolution in 1970s Ethiopia, and was...
23 Jul 202322min
Forwards Toward the Past. Masande Ntshanga and Julia Wiedlocha
The year is 2043, and an astronomer at the South-African Space Agency receives a package filled with documents, which contain a warning that the earth will end in 10 years.The documents are diary entr...
9 Jul 20231h
Brave New Worlds: Personal lecture by Masande Ntshanga
«I’ve always found Science Fiction to be a form that’s irrevocably linked to critiques of power and societal structures,» writer Masande Ntshanga has said. During his adolescence, he read a lot of sci...
25 Jun 202350min
