7:00 pm | tak | Festival Opening
Too many books, too little time? Welcome to African Book Festival. Meet all the festival writers, bookclubs and find the book(s) you need.
8:30 pm
FOOD BOOKS MUSIC
Time to mingle, eat, rifle your way through the festival book shop, listen to beats by DJ PAM BAM and enjoy the bookish company.
10:30 am – 11:30 am | Panel Discussion
How free is the artist when awards and funding are everything today?
With: Karen Jennings, Dudu Busani Dube & Troy Onyango
Mod.: Stefanie Hirsbrunner
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm | Book Special
Edo’s Souls is a compelling, multi-generational epic that sees the three main characters trapped in a nation gripped by the terrors of civil war, forcing each one to confront their past selves, and to resolve what is most important to them – love, family, or country.
With: Stella Gaitano
Mod.: Venice Trommer
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm | Short Film & Panel Discussion
How can the telling of the lived realities and stories of queer people, and how can queer literary and cultural production, be used as a vehicle for empathy and human rights whilst also being entertaining and telling stories of love?
With: Bisi Alimi, Ifeatu Nnaobi
Mod: Sarika Hemi Lakhani
In Collaboration with the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation.
11:00 am -11:45 am | Book Special
Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders?whether they be national, ethnic, or religious?and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction.
With: Fatin Abbas
Mod.: Ifeatu Nnaobi
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm | Book Special
The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration.
With: Nick Makoha
Mod.: D I Jolly
1:00 pm – 1:45 pm | Book Special [In German]
Unter derselben Sonne’ ist ein Roman, der mit Sanftheit und Humor eindringliche Fragen nach Heimat und Identität in der alltäglichen Erfahrung des Fremdseins stellt. Ein eindrücklicher Roman über Familie, das Erwachsenwerden und die Suche nach sich selbst in unserer globalen Welt.
With: Nadège Kusanika
Mod.: Georgina Fakunmoju
11:00 am – 12:30 pm | Workshop
This workshop offers a practical entry point into editing Wikipedia. Designed for attendees of the African Book Festival, participants will learn how to create new articles and improve existing entries, with a focus on authors and literary works featured in the festival. The workshop aims to enable participants to actively contribute to the representation and visibility of African literature online. No prior experience is required.
In collaboration with Wkimedia Deutschland e. V.
Spots are limited, registration via e-mail to info[at]interkontinental.org required.
1:45 pm – 3:00 pm
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm | Book Recommendations
Book club members bring their tops and flops and recommend books that have inspired them and answer the most pressing question of all: What should I (or not) read next?
With: The Reading Room, Kitabu Sisters, SADOCC
Mod.: Niq Mhlongo
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm | Panel Discussion
Against a backdrop of revolutionary experience, the panel explores questions of identity, responsibility and artistic freedom.
With: Stella Gaitano, Fatin Abbas
Mod.: Celia Parbey
In collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
6:00 pm – 6:45 pm | Book Special
With Black History, Amat Levin presents a counter-narrative to western historiography. He puts the history of African peoples and societies at the center, telling their stories – also drawing on the work of African scholars – across four millennia and three continents: from the great civilizations of Nubia and Aksum to the kingdoms of Ethiopia, Mali, and Great Zimbabwe, and on to the eras of subjugation and enslavement, as well as the freedom struggles in the Caribbean, the resistance of Angela Davis, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock and roll.
With: Amat Levin
Mod.: Karla Kutzner
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm | Arena
May the games begin: 4 panelists bring one book they love to the table. Will the other three love it as much as they do? Will they be able to convince each other or is a good book after all in the eye of the beholder? Let’s find out. Up for debate are Return by Raharimanana, The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia, Corregidora by Gayl Jones & Riambel by Priya Hein.
With: Edwige-Renee Dro, A. Igoni Barrett & Niq Mhlongo
Moderation: Stefanie Hirsbrunner
3:15 pm – 4:00 pm | Book Special
Troy Onyango’s For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings is a collection of twelve short stories that have a quickening pulse and pages crackling with sharp observations and gentle revelations about love, loneliness, loss, longing, and the infinite intricacies of daily human life.
Mod.: Chiponda Chimbelu
4:15 pm – 5:00 pm | Book Special
Every small town has a dark secret. Every person who roams its streets is hiding something. On the night before Charlotte’s grandmother dies, she hands her keys for a house she did not know existed, in a town she has never heard of. Had Charlotte known the truth, she never would have gone to that house, because sometimes the truth does not set you free.
With: Dudu Busani Dube
Mod.: Stefanie Hirsbrunner
5:45 pm – 6:30pm | Book Special
In the back of his mind, Michael has a plan: follow his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out, and then he will decide if his life is truly worth living… Written in spellbinding prose, with Bola’s trademark, magnetic storytelling, The Selfless Act of Breathing is a heart-wrenching and deeply emotional novel about mental health, masculinity and the power of love.
With: JJ BOLA
Mod.: Chiponda Chimbelu
10:30 am – 11:30 am | Panel Discussion
To centre the voices of the enslaved, authors and scholars alike often navigate the challenge of utilising archival records that are mostly created by oppressors. How do authors balance these complexities?
With: Vamba Sherif, Karen Jennings
Mod.: Solène Vangout
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm | Panel Discussion
Poetry as a form of aesthetic resistance and low-risk activism. How does poetry construct counter-narratives, give voice to oppressed communities, create social bonds and foster solidarity among opponents of authoritarianism or systemic injustice?
With: Nick Makoha & Ana Lucão Mvangi
Mod.: Ifeatu Nnaobi
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm | Panel Discussion
Book club members their tops and flops and answer the most pressing question of all: What should I or should I not read next?
With: AKUMA, AFiWI, Panafro Bookclub
Mod.: Karla Kutzner
10:30 am – 11:30 am | Book Special
Winner of the Grand Prix Afrique 2025 and the Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie 2025, The Fisherman’s Dream is a brilliantly crafted novel that braids together the destinies of a grandfather and grandson, each carrying the weight of a world transformed by globalization, displacement, and the delicate inheritance of love.
With: Hemley Boum
Mod.: Edwige-Renée Dro
12:00 pm -1:00 pm | Panel Discussion
How can men take responsibility, both individually and collectively, especially when at the same time racialised perceptions cast them as potential threats? A conversation on responsibility, solidarity, and reimagining masculinity as a shared social project.
With: JJ Bola & Fikri Anıl Altıntaş
Mod.: Bisi Alimi
1:30 pm -2:30 pm | Book Special
This book is about surviving the genocide against tutsi at a very young age. It exposes the loss of innocence, vulnerability and hatred. The book’s main theme is Genocide, childhood and trauma.
With: Tete Loeper
Mod.: Venice Trommer
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
3:00 pm – 4:15 pm
Texts, sounds, ideas, sketches — whether polished, raw, or just a loose thought. Here, we put everything together, listen, spin further, and let something new emerge. No pressure, no competition — just a space where fragments can shine. Join in if you have a piece. Or come by to let yourself drift.
With: Chiny Udeani, Faheem Hemboum, Otis Mensah & Meret Weber
Mod.: Miriam de Hohenstein
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
In this groundbreaking work, Bonhomme explores how six pivotal diseases – Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola and COVID-19 – have shaped the trajectory of human history. Through vivid storytelling and rigorous research, she reveals how pandemics have consistently widened the gaps in racial, economic and sociopolitical divides, from the slave ships of the Atlantic to today’s fractured healthcare systems.
With: Edna Bonhomme
Mod.: Solène Vangout
6:00 pm | Spoken Words
Poetry as a bridge between languages, cultures and realities: the Poetry Night at the African Book Festival 2026 brings together extraordinary voices centering the diasporic experience – whilst creating new realities. Blurring the lines between performance and poetry, sound and the body, a space is created for stories that would otherwise go unheard.
With: Nick Makoha, Ana Lucão Mvangi, JJ Bola & Janne Bierwirth
Mod.: Venice Trommer
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