The Africa Writes festival is an annual celebration of contemporary literature from Africa and the diaspora brought to you by The Royal African Society. This year the University of Birmingham hosted a strand of the Africa Writes Festival last week
Africa Writes is the UK’s largest annual festival of African writing and literary culture. On Monday 9th October the Department of African Studies and Anthropology (DASA) at the University of Birmingham teamed up with Africa Writes organisers-the Royal African Society-(based at SOAS, London), the Library of Birmingham and Writing West Midlands to deliver two events as part of this year’s Festival. The events also comprised part of Writing West Midlands annual literary Festival.
A lively afternoon and evening of “Pop-up” events saw DASA welcome established and emerging Nigerian diaspora authors Chinelo Okparanta, Jowhor Ile and Olumide Popoola to Birmingham. Afternoon events in the programme included book launches and a creative writing workshop themed around “The Spirit of Place” delivered by DASA Teaching Fellow Jo Skelt. In the evening the “Pop-up” moved to the Library of Birmingham on Centenary Square for “Chinelo Okparanta in Conversation” which was held in the Library Theatre.
