Virtually Yours the festival brings you brilliant African and German authors in conversation about their works. Curated jointly by Zukiswa Wanner and Zoë Beck, the festival highlights common topics in both African and German literature through intimate conversations with different authors. Tune in at 9pmEAT / 6pmGMT /7pmWET / 8pmCAT everyday between 11 and 14 November and also Saturday 13th November 4pm East African Time/1pm GMT. Participation is free.
Register now!“
THE PROGRAM OF THE FESTIVAL
| DATE |
PANELISTS |
THEME |
MODERATOR |
Thursday 11th November
9pm – 10.20pm EAT /6pm GMT
(English, with French translation) |
Mukoma wa Ngugi & Imran Ayata |
Sounds of Music |
Anke Dörsam |
Friday 12th November
9pm – 10.20pm EAT /6pm GMT
(English, with French translation) |
Maaza Mengiste & Sharon Dodua Otoo |
Unforgotten Herstories |
Remy Ngamije |
Saturday 13th November
9pm – 10.20pm EAT /6pm GMT
(English, with French translation) |
Angela Makholwa & Melanie Raabe |
Crime Pays |
Pippa Goldschmidt |
Sunday 14th November
9pm – 10.20pm EAT /6pm GMT
(French, with English translation) |
Anne Weber & Beata Umubyeyi |
Lost or Found in Translation |
Merdi Mukore |
PANELISTS
IMRAN AYATA
© Jonas Holthaus
İmran Ayata (* 1969 in Ulm) is author and campaigner as well as the co-founder of Kanak Attak and former editor of "Die Beute. Zeitschrift für Politik und Verbrechen". Additionally, he is the managing partner of a campaign agency.
Ayata’s first short story collection Hürriyet Love Express (2005), was praised by literary critics. The reviewer Dirk Fuhrig from Frankfurter Rundschau spoke enthusiastically of Ayata’s distinctive "German-Turkish post-pop literature". His 2011 novel “Mein Name ist Revolution” (My name is Revolution) was widely praised in the media. Moritz Scheper, for example, wrote in Tagesspiegel that Ayata's novel was a "stroke of luck [...] Every word, every sound fits perfectly, is precisely overheard." Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung’s Lena Bopp wrote of the novel "Ayata's book is a beautiful homage to wild life, to the big city and good friends, to a daily life between intoxication and remorse that knows no existential but metaphysical bounds; it is a declaration of love and bankruptcy in one”. Or simply "a wonderful German-Turkish unification novel", as DIE ZEIT wrote. In October 2015 "Ruhm und Ruin" (Glory and Decline) was published by Verbrecher Verlag. From the perspective of intercultural literary studies, Ayata is one of the "literary representatives of a postcolonial, hybrid mixed culture" in Germany.
Together with Bülent Kullukcu, Imran Ayata released the CD Songs of the Guest Worker Vol. 1 (“Songs of Gastarbeiter Vol. 1”) under the Trikont imprint in October 2013. Songs of the Guest Worker Vol. 2 is due for release in January 2022.
MAAZA MENGISTE
© Nina Subin
Maaza Mengiste is the author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and a recipient of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature, as well as a LA Times Books Prize finalist. It was named a Best Book of 2019 by New York Times, NPR, Time, Elle, and other publications. Beneath the Lion's Gaze, her debut, was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books.
MELANIE RAABE
© Christian Faustus
Melanie Raabe was born in 1981. After her studies she worked as a journalist during the day and secretly wrote books at night. The Trap was published in 2015, followed by the thrillers The Truth (2016), The Shadow (2018) and The Woods (2019) and the non-fictional Creativity in 2020. Melanie Raabe's novels are published in over 20 countries and several movie adaptations are underway. She also co-hosts a weekly podcast on the topic of creativity, 'Raabe & Krieg'.
MUKOMA WA NGUGI
© Robin Burke
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is an Associate Professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University and the author of The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity and Ownership, the novels Mrs. Shaw, Black Star Nairobi, Nairobi Heat, and two books of poetry, Logotherapy and Hurling Words at Consciousness. Unbury Our Dead With Song (a novel about competing Tizita musicians) has just been released by Cassava Republic Press. www.mukomawangugi.com. twitter: @MukomaWaNgugi
MERDI MUKORE
© Courtesy
Merdi Mukore is a cultural mediator at the University of Strasbourg, where he is pursuing a master's degree in law. He began by writing theater texts before trying his hand at short stories. He joined the theater "Tarmac des Auteurs" in Kinshasa where he participated in artist's workshops and writing residencies with dramaturges such as Hakim Bah, Denis Mpunga, Wakeu Fogain, Laetitia Ajanohun, and David Ilunga. His plays are read and staged during the International Festival of Theatre of Kinshasa,"Ça se passe à Kin". In 2019, he became Secretary General of the Association of Young Writers of Congo and is among the 17 African writers selected in the project Afro Young Adult, an initiative of the South African writer Zukiswa Wanner. In 2020, he became co-founder and member of the editorial board of MIEZI. He is also a member of the board of directors of Ecrivains du Congo.
PIPPA GOLDSCHMIDT
© Kim Ayres
Pippa Goldschmidt is a writer based in Edinburgh and Frankfurt with a PhD in astronomy. She’s the author of the novel The Falling Sky (also published in Germany as Weiter als der Himmel by Weidle Verlag) and the short story collection The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space (also published in Germany as Von der Notwendigkeit, den Weltraum zu Ordnen by CulturBooks). Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in a variety of places including most recently Mslexia and the Times Literary Supplement.
She’s co-editor (with Drs Gill Haddow and Fadhila Mazanderani) of Uncanny Bodies, an academic-creative mash-up of literature and essays inspired by Freud, sickness, cyborgs and the history of Edinburgh, published by Luna Press in 2020.
Please visit @goldipipschmidt and www.pippagoldschmidt.co.uk
RÉMY NGAMIJE
© Courtesy
Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the founder, chairperson, and artministrator of Doek, an independent arts organisation in Namibia supporting the literary arts. He is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia’s first and only literary magazine. His debut novel "The Eternal Audience Of One" is available from Scout Press (S&S). His work has appeared in The Johannesburg Review of Books, American Chordata, Lolwe, Granta and many other places.
He won the Africa Regional Prize of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He was shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020 and 2021. He was also longlisted and shortlisted for the 2020 and 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prizes respectively. In 2019 he was shortlisted for Best Original Fiction by Stack Magazines. More of his writing can be read on his website: remythequill.com
SHARON DODUA OTOO
© Ralf Steinberger
Sharon Dodua Otoo (*1972 in London) is an author and a political activist.
She writes prose and essays and is editor of the English-language book series "Witnessed" (edition assemblage). Her first novellas "the things i am thinking while smiling politely" and "Synchronicity" were published in English and German translation by edition assemblage, and in a double-edition in German by S. Fischer Verlag. Otoo won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2016 with the text "Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin". In 2020 her inaugural speech at the Festival of German Language Literature "Dürfen Schwarze Blumen Malen?" was published by Verlag Heyn and in 2020 her first novel in German "Adas Raum" was published by S. Fischer Verlag. Otoo currently lives with her family in Berlin and will be Schroeder Writer-in-Residence at Cambridge University in March 2022.
ANGELA MAKHOLWA
© Courtesy
Angela Makholwa burst into the literary crime scene with the release of her gritty debut novel, Red Ink, set in Johannesburg. The novel was inspired by Angela’s real-life encounters with one of South Africa’s most notorious serial killers, Moses Sithole. This was followed by “The 30th Candle”, a book that revolves around four university friends who navigate their way to their 30th birthdays with humorous and sometimes unexpected results.
The “Black Widow Society” follows the cloak and dagger workings of a secret society of middle-class women who plot to eliminate their errant husbands through devious and underhanded means, giving fresh meaning to the words “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.
“The Blessed Girl” is a satirical novel told from the perspective of a young woman who engages in transactional relationships with married men. Angela’s latest novel is entitled “Critical But, Stable’.
ANKE DÖRSAM
© Courtesy
Anke Dörsam was born in West-Berlin. After studies of theology, linguistics and comparative literature in Mainz, Munich and Jerusalem she lives in Berlin with her wife, an orchestra musician, as a freelance writer, editor and journalist. Her belletristic works have been published in several magazins such as Sprache im Technischen Zeitalter (Language in the Technical Age), Politisch Schreiben (Writing Politically) and mischen (mixing)."
ANNE WEBER
© Thorsten Greve
Anne Weber, born in 1964 in Germany, lives in Paris. She always writes her books in both languages, German and French, and has translated numerous French authors into German.
BEATA UMUBYEYI
© Free Copyright
Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was born in Butare, Rwanda, and came to France in 1994 after surviving the genocide against the Tutsi.
She studied political sciences and worked for NGOs, living in different continents. She is now settled in Bordeaux.
Her first collection of short stories, Ejo, was published in 2015, and her second, Lézardes, two years latter, both winners of several french literary awards.
Her debut novel Tous tes enfants dispersés, was acclaimed by critics and won the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie 2020.
She also writes poetry.
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