African Book Festival 2019

The African Book Festival 2019 took place from 4 to 7 April 2019 at Babylon in Berlin. With the theme “Transitioning from Migration”, the African Book Festival 2019 continued the theme of the previous year, as migration continues to be of utmost explosiveness. The focus this time was on transitions, changes and future perspectives. Various questions will be addressed: How is the theme of crossing borders, physically but also stylistically interpreted by African authors? How are personal experiences of changing the centre of one’s life reflected in poetry?

With readings, interviews, discussions, films, theatre, poetry slam, spoken word performances and music, the programme also ensured more diversity in Germany’s literary and political scene. A total of 46 different writers, poets and artists from 21 countries from Africa and the Diaspora were invited to Berlin.

Tsitsi Dangarembga is a writer and director, born in 1959 in Mutoko, Zimbabwe. She studied at Cambridge University (Medicine) and when Zimbabwe was about to become independent in 1980, she returned to Harare to study at the University of Harare (Psychology).

Later she made her Diploma at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (German Film and Television Academy Berlin), from 1989-1996, which she completed with distinction. In 1992 she started Nyeria Films, a film production company in Harare, which she heads until today. She is the founder and director of the International Images Film festival for Women, Harare, and a member of Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFZ).

All pictures by ©JörgKandziora