Berlin’s African Book Festival has celebrated African literature since 2018. This year, authors and readers will connect at tak (Thearer Aufbau Kreuzberg) on May 29 and 30 for a vibrant weekend of insightful talks, compelling performances, delicious food and live music. Behind the festival is InterKontinental, the Berlin-based non-profit whose shop and restaurant, One More Chapter, is the first bookstore of African and Afrodiasporic literature in Germany.
South African writer and resident Berliner Niq Mhlongo is a festival board member and book club enthusiast. Author and editor of 11 novels, including Dog Eat Dog and Black Tax, he knows the joys and difficulties of life as an African writer in Europe. We talked with Mhlongo about this year’s highlights, the importance of literary dialogue and the racist bureaucracy that gets in its way.
What’s your role in the African Book Festival?
I’m one of the board members. We advise the African Book Festival about the inclusion of authors in line with the African continent and diaspora. Sometimes, festivals will only focus on the anglophones, but we make a point to encompass everyone from the African continent. Our main language is English, because English is accessible here in Germany, but if a writer has written in other languages, we get translators. We include all languages to make books accessible. But when a book is translated into German, that’s a bonus.
How do you narrow down the authors you want to work with?
We look at books that make us tolerant towards one another, that help us understand each other. Also, authors who have influence in their own countries. One of the greatest books I’ve ever read was by Tsitsi Dangarembga, called Nervous Conditions. She came to the festival and some of her books were translated. That’s when people in Germany and elsewhere rediscovered, or discovered her for the first time. Now she’s big. But she was always big where I come from. We also want to divert our attention from the mainstream – from authors and books who are pushed for us to consume, only to find that there are a lot of authors with the same impact. In that way, the African Book Festival is a bridge – culture-wise, political-wise and economy-wise – between Europe and Africa.
This year, the curator is the audience. How does that work?
We always have a curator. This year, it’s the people. It’s everyone. So people write to us with books that we should look into. We read those books then find out if these are really important topics that might help shape the relationship between, not just Germany, but Europe and Africa.
We also follow book clubs. Book clubs are very important to us. Last year, we put out a call and received more than 100 applications from book clubs based in Africa. They want to feel represented. They want to make their authors known and share what’s going on in their different literary landscapes with the world. They point out certain books that we might not be aware of and certain authors that mean a lot in their environments. We take that very seriously.
So these book clubs wanted to come, but unfortunately, you know, there’s a… hiccup when it comes to people from Africa coming to Europe. People wanted to attend but were turned away. Their applications were not processed on time or not processed at all.
Germany turns down their visa applications? Even for a short trip?
That happens a lot. Some don’t even get appointments to apply for a visa. It’s one of the main problems – this bureaucratic red tape about Africans travelling into Europe. One of our authors wrote about the topic: how you apply for a visa, when you apply for a visa, what to do if your visa is rejected and you have already paid the money, because it’s not refundable. Germany makes a lot of money from that. It’s all about teaching each other how things are. We only get that from people who have written a lot. If those books aren’t put to the front, no one will know about it. That’s what the African Book Festival is trying to do.
So you’re inviting African writers for this huge cultural event to give them a voice and platform in Europe, and Germany doesn’t let them in? What’s their problem?
The festival makes us feel at home.
There’s a negative attitude towards Africans when they visit Europe. Even well-known or wealthy Africans will be regarded as a person who wants to stay. Last year, three of the book clubs we invited got detained for the whole day at the airport. They were told to phone the person who invited them. That person was at the festival, busy on stage, but they had to answer to immigration over the phone: “Do you know this person? Are you sure they’re going back to Africa?” That’s the attitude. It’s an unfair balance of the scale. When Germans go to Africa, you take your passport, hop into a plane and then go. No visa required.
There’s also a thing about categorising African countries. Relatively speaking, a white person from South Africa will find it easier to get a visa to come to Berlin. There won’t be many things asked about such a person coming here – and I’m speaking relatively – compared to a person coming from, say, Angola, who only knows a few words in English, or the Francophone people. In Nigeria, for instance, they’ll say they’re swamped when it comes to visa applications. People don’t even get a slot – just a slot – to be able to apply. Whereas for people in South Africa, it’s a little bit better, you know?
Are there good things about Germany, at least in terms of literature?
Our authors are amazed by the book culture in Germany, especially in Berlin. Literature and art are taken very highly, to such an extent that you find even those small libraries [Bücherschränke], where people say, ‘Read if you want to read’ I always tell people how, during Corona, one of the essentials was that bookstores stay open, just like supermarkets, for a person’s well-being. People are amazed at that. One of the things I like best is that people even pay for a book launch. An author is not taken lightly.
Sometimes I take authors for a walk, and you’ll find everyone reading by the river, or even in graveyards – on a bench reading, on the bus, on the train. The infrastructure allows people to do such things. That adds to the quality of life. When we talk about the quality of life, we talk about such freedoms of being able to read and consume information everywhere. That’s a luxury that other people don’t have. Even in South Africa, we don’t have that.
Why do you think that is?
Books are more expensive and the infrastructure doesn’t allow it. When you grow up under that infrastructure, it’s within you. It becomes part of your culture. So here, the reading culture is much higher. It’s inculcated from a younger age. Authors want to take part in this culture and import it into their own country. “If I have a little bit of money, I can establish a roadside library in my village back home.” Those are the kind of things you want to share.
What can guests expect from this year from the African Book Festival?
The lineup is very good. We’ve got 12 writers. For instance, Dudu Busani. Her The Hlomu Series was adapted into a Showmax series. It’s very rare for a self-published author to make it to that level. Then we’ve got Troy Onyango, who was a judge of the Booker Prize. He’s got a short story collection, but he’s also coming to speak about the importance of literary prizes. We have Karen Jennings from South Africa, whose book An Island was longlisted for the Booker. We’ve got Fatin Abbas. She wrote a very, very beautiful book that I read about war and humanity in Sudan. It’s important, considering all that is happening in Sudan at the moment, to share the pain and happiness and all the love in writing.
Sounds amazing. Is there more?
Book clubs are very, very important in making sure that the word of literature spreads across the world in this digital era.
A poetry night, which is huge, because it includes Berlin poets as well. We’ve invited one of the best poets at the moment, Nick Makoha, who lives in the diaspora and is originally from Uganda. He’s coming to tell us what poetry does to challenge authoritarian systems around the world. We’ve got a huge table with all the authors’ books to be sold, also with authors from festivals in the past and ones we’re planning to invite – a variety you can’t get in Berlin or Germany. One of our important segments is called ‘Book Speed Dating’, where people talk about the first books they loved. Besides that, there will be food and music! African chefs will cook African food, and we’ll do what we call a braai in South Africa for people who prefer meat, and we also cater to vegetarians. It will be an extravaganza.
What’s something you’re really looking forward to this year?
I’ve got a session with the book clubs invited this year. Book clubs are very, very important in making sure that the word of literature spreads across the world in this digital era. They’re the marketers of the authors. They’ll talk about the books they’ve chosen, that they loved best, that they feel like everyone should read or that should be translated. They even have the opportunity to meet an author. They read an author who is going to come to the festival beforehand, then have a one-on-one as a book club.
That’s the book club dream! What does the African Book Festival mean to you?
It is a way of sharing. It’s about bridging the gap between Africans who still live in Africa and Africans in the diaspora. You’re able to get an update from a firsthand messenger. Living in the diaspora, it’s very important to have these people coming fresh from Africa to share the landscape of what’s happening with us – the things we’re missing while we’re here. The festival makes us feel at home.
You can buy tickets for the African Book Festival at africanbookfestival.de and follow Niq @niq.mhlongo
