African Book Festival 2021

The African Book Festival 2021 took place from the 16th to the 17th of July in the open-air cinema Freiluftkino Rehberge in Berlin. Renowned Angolan author and musician Kalaf Epalanga curated the event and explored the festival theme Telling the Origin Stories by focusing on questions on origin, affiliation and identity, placing Lusophone literature and the connection between music and literature at the heart of the event.

The African Book Festival was presented by InterKontinental e.V., a non-profit association whose goal is to promote literature from Africa as well as writers from African countries in Germany. 

All pictures by ©JörgKandziora

The musician and author Kalaf Epalanga was born in Benguela, Angola and is based in Berlin. As a musician, he co-founded the record label Enchufada, a creative and dynamic platform that promotes new music styles from Lisbon around the world, and went on to form the MTV Europe Music Award-winning band, Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016).

He wrote a regular column of short literary chronicles for the prestigious Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola and collaborates regularly with the Brazilian literary Magazine Quatro Cinco Um.

Kalaf Epalanga has published in Angola and Portugal two collections of literary chronicles ‘Estórias de Amor para Meninos de Cor’ (engl.: Lovestories for kids of color, 2011) and ‘O Angolano que Comprou Lisboa (Por Metade do Preço)’ (engl.: The Angolan who Bought Lisbon (at Half the Price), 2014).

‘Também os Brancos Sabem (engl.: The Whites Also Can Dance, Editorial Caminho, 2017)  published in Angola, Portugal and Brasil, is his first novel and was critically acclaimed in the Portuguese-speaking world.