"In the Other Direction Now. Dispatches from East Africa" by Navid Kermani

Hear directly from Navid Kermani – one of Germany’s most celebrated writers and foremost public intellectuals.

Come to the Goethe-Institut London for the launch of the English translation of Navid Kermani’s In The Other Directon Now: Dispatches from East Africa (Armchair Traveller, Haus Publishing, 2026) [dt. “In die andere Richtung jetzt: Eine Reise durch Ostafrika” (C.H. Beck, 2024)] translated by the acclaimed Tony Crawford.

Navid Kermani will be joined in conversation by Simukai Chigudu Associate Professor of African Politics at the Oxford Department of International Development and Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford University. Simukai is broadly interested in the politics of global health and epidemics, race and identity, citizenship and activist movements, with a regional focus on Africa and the African diaspora.

‘Kermani is a great reporter – curious, open, and tireless. – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

‘Among the most thoughtful intellectual voices in Germany today’ – The New York Review of Books
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Travelling from Madagascar to the Sudan, Navid Kermani found peoples and cultures in flux.

From Madagascar to the Sudan, Navid Kermani finds peoples and cultures in flux.

In the Nuba Mountains, people are enduring war; residents of Nairobi inhabit a city shaped by colonialism; in southern Madagascar, farmers and fishers struggle with the first drought and famine to be attributed directly to climate change. As China and the West compete for scarce resources and wealthy Arab countries exert their influence on religion and culture, colonial crimes are perpetuated in extractive economies and unaccountable governance.

Yet the Eastern Africa that comes to life under Kermani’s critical and sensitive eye is that of the farmers and professionals, artists and soldiers, parents and children, priests and imams. Traditional music, Ethiopian jazz, and Sufi ritual songs are powerful currents of identity; faith is a unifying force in contested areas; violence and oppression are answered with perseverance and resistance.

In the Other Direction Now is an essential work of human observation and under­standing that reflects on issues of the present moment, and on the fundamental questions of life, in a region too often excluded from the world’s gaze.