Auditorium

10 am – 11 am

Literary Histories and Memory Making
For her latest novel “The Fortune Men”, shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, writer Nadifa Mohamed says she left her country of birth, Somalia, for the first time imaginatively. How do authors create memory? How do artistic memories infuse their idea and sense of the future?
A session with an author who writes histories into memories like few others.
Moderator: Angela Wachuka

12 noon – 1 pm

Meet the author: José
Eduardo Agualusa (Angola)
An introduction to one of the most important writers from Africa – why, what and how he writes, and why his readers lose all sense of reality.
Moderator: Beverly Ochieng

2 pm – 3 pm

Inscribing Africa* What do we have in common? How do our similarities and differences set us up for a future as Africans and as citizens of the world? With authors Patrice Nganang (Cameroon/ USA), José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya) whose writing and whose lives are deeply rooted in the continent.
Moderator: Mshai Mwangola

4 pm – 5.30 pm

Where is Africa?
We are building our world* The setting of a story is a crucial aspect of writing. How do authors create imaginary spaces that are distinctly African? How do we extend our horizon of what Africa is – and what it is not?
Moderator: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim with Mia Couto (Mozambique), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania/ UK), Nadifa Mohamed (Somalia/ UK) and Hafsa Zayyan (UK)
Moderator: Natasha Kimani

6.30 pm – 8 pm

Alive and Aloud! Insurgent voices in a time of chaos
In this transatlantic spoken word performance, poets Slim Shaka (Kenya) and Roberta Estrela D’Alva (Brazil) reflect on the similarities and differences of colonialism in Kenya and Brazil, how it affected people and morphed them into today’s social and political structures.

Ukumbi Mdogo

10.30 am – 11.30 am

Meet the author:
Abdulai Silá (Guinea-Bissau)
He has written about emerging political awareness in an Africa beginning to challenge Portuguese colonial rule – bringing his little-known country to vivid life for his readers. What else can we learn about an author who believes that a writer can play an important role in the pursuit of legitimate aspirations for freedom and development throughout Africa?
Moderator: Lucy Mulli

12.30 pm – 1.30 pm

The first ever
Coming from Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar, two historical fiction novels are the first literary output of these countries to be translated into English: What does it mean to writers Abdulai Silá (Guinea-Bissau) and Naivo (Madagascar) – and their countries?
What stories are they telling, and what stories have we been missing? Why are these first translated works novels of historical fiction, of all topics?
Moderator: Natasha Kimani

2.30 pm – 3.30 pm

Meet the author: Yara Monteiro (Angola/ Portugal)
Who is the author of “Loose Ties”, who describes herself as a great-great-grand-daughter of slavery, a great-granddaughter of racial intermarriage, a granddaughter of independence and a daughter of the diaspora?
Moderator: Aleya Kassam

4.30 pm – 5.30 pm

Africa Book Launch: Patrice Nganang (Cameroon)
“The dream of Cameroon is contradictory”, says novelist and scholar Patrice Nganang after completing a historical trilogy about his
homeland Cameroon in which he tries to reimagine a nation. He shares his journey searching for Cameroon‘s past only to find – what exactly?
Moderator: Beverly Ochieng’

Auditorium

10 am – 11 am

African Oral Storytelling:
A Technological Speculation Virtual Reality (VR) artist Melisa Allela introduces the concept of storytelling using VR Beings and mixed reality. Can the
performative and participatory traditions of African oral storytelling be realized using new technologies? The audience will be able to participate in the digital retelling of an old tale via VR Headsets.

12 noon – 1.30 pm

Writing with Light:
Film and Explorations
We will screen PUMZI (2009), a science fiction short film by Kenyan film maker Wanuri Kahiu. Afterwards, Wanuri will be in conversation with film scholar Rachael Diang‘a on science fiction storytelling and its role in the imagination of African futures. PUMZI came out 13 years ago: What film would Wanuri Kahiu make today, in light of the acceleration of the climate crisis? What future does she imagine today?

2 pm – 3.30 pm

“Becoming a writer was not an ambition”

From creating a new life at 18, not being able to get a literary agent to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation with scholar Mshai Mwangola about his life and why he refuses to represent anyone but himself

4 pm – 5.30 pm

Tragedy, Horror, Dystopia;
Hope and Earth Futures* How do we write our lives when the world is in turmoil – due to the climate crisis and its effects, the threat of wars, shifting geopolitical paradigms, and the disillusionment of the youth? A conversation with Yvonne Adhiambo
Owuor (Kenya), Abdulai Silá (Guinea-Bissau), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania/ UK) and Patrice Nganang (Cameroon/ USA)
Moderator: Abdi Latif Dahir

6 pm – 8 pm

Closing Ceremony
with Mshai Mwangola and Aleya Kassam

Ukumbi Mdogo

10.30 am – 11.30 am

Kenya writes
This session shines a spotlight on some of the exciting writing coming out of Kenya today.
Writers Gloria Mwaniga, Dennis Mugaa and Khadija Abdalla Bajaber share their writing stories.
Moderator: Lucy Mulli

12.30 pm – 1.30 pm

History writes Poetry
Four poetesses who derive inspiration for their poetry from histories and memories. How do they turn history into lyrics? Yara
Monteiro (Angola/ Portugal), Sylvie Kandé (Senegal/ USA) and Roberta Estrela D’Alva (Brazil) in conversation with Kenyan poet Aleya Kassam

2.30 pm – 3.30 pm

Languaging Africa –Writing in French and Portuguese
An introduction to stories, writers, trends and the literary scene in Portuguese and French speaking African countries, with Yara Monteiro (Angola/ Portugal) and Sylvie Kandé (Senegal/ USA)
Moderator: Oduor Obura

4.30 pm – 5.30 pm

Metaphors and Myths of Belonging
What stories do we tell about ourselves where we come from? What stories do we imagine for our forebears? What stories do we invent and attribute to the past in order to explain the present and anticipate the future? A few answers by Nadifa Mohamed (Somalia/ UK), Hafsa Zayyan (UK) and Naivo (Madagascar)
Moderator: Oduor Obura