African Book Festival 2018

Taking place from April 26-28 in 2018, InterKontinental presented for the first time a literary festival with and by African writers in Berlin. Curated by the German-Nigerian author Olumide Popoola the festival looked at transnationalism and migration in a more literary sense of “keeping in motion”.

For three days and with the help of fiction, poetry, lectures and panel discussions African reality of life was focused on. How do writers from Africa or the diaspora negotiate the changes that come with displacement, forced or chosen? How do writers approach the constant flux of place and identity? Are they still bound by tradition or being truthful to notions of an “African Identity”?

Writing in Migration brought authors from three continents to Berlin whose books are literary visions and trendsetters all over the world. Together with curator Olumide Popoola, they encouraged their audience: Read Outside The Box.

Olumide Popoola is a London-based Nigerian German writer and speaker who presents internationally. Her novella which is not about sadness was published by Unrast Verlag in 2010. Her play Also by Mail was published in 2013 by Witnessed (edition assemblage) and the short story collection breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes, in 2016 by Peirene Press. Her full-length novel When we Speak of Nothing was published in the UK and Nigeria in 2017 (Cassava Republic Press). Her publications also include critical essays (often on practice-led research and the novel), hybrid pieces and poetry. The scope of her work concerns the critical investigation into the ‘in-between’ of culture, language and public space where a, sometimes uncomfortable, look at complexity is needed. Olumide holds a PhD in Creative Writing, a MA in Creative Writing and a BSc in Ayurvedic Medicine. She lectures creative writing. In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry. She has received grants, fellowships and residencies from Grants for the Arts/Arts Council England, UEL, Djerassi, Künstlerdorf Schöppingen and Hedgebrook, amongst others.

Pictures by Esther Heller, Elisabeth Schmit and InterKontinental