Past events

OUR STORY

InterKontinental e.V. organised the first edition of the African Book Festival titled “Writing in Migration” in 2018, the biggest literature festival for African literature in Germany.

The project curated by the Nigerian-German author Olumide Popoola was a great success, hosting more than 1000 visitors and 40 guest authors, and set new standards in terms of representation of African literature in Germany.

Since then, InterKontinental e.V. has organised the African Book festival in Berlin annually. Information about the current festival can be found on this website.

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In addition to the Festival, the association organised numerous readings and had a diversity of authors from the African continent and its diaspora as guest: among them were for instance Panashe Chigumadzi, Yaa Gyasi, Emmanuel Iduma, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Elnathan John, Niq Mhlongo and Johny Pitts. We were very pleased to host book launches as well: in May 2019, Yvonne Owuor presented her new novel The Dragonfly Sea in our bookshop and in November 2020 the author Flora Veit-Wild, who is also a member of InterKontinental, launched her new book They Called you Dambudzo in the form of a digital event.

Since its founding, InterKontinental has become an important promoter of African literature in the German-speaking literary scene.

We partnered for instance with many literary institutions such as the Foundation Jan Michalski, numerous political foundations such as Rosa Luxemburg and Heinrich Böll, Literaturhaus Berlin, litprom, the Literaturhaus München, the Residenz Verlag or the Frankfurter Buchmesse. We also regularly participate in national and international book fairs and are invited to contribute to literature festivals.

We also strive to develop innovative literary concepts and projects. For example, in 2018 we set up poetry and creative writing workshops for young refugee women – a project that was curated and facilitated by the Zimbabwean artist Linda Gabriel.