For 3 days every year, London becomes the Mecca of African literature. Literature lovers all over the city gather together at the Africa Writes book festival to celebrate African writing and enjoy a rich fare of readings, lectures, performances, book launches, and more more. If this year’s festival, slated for June 30 to July 2, is anything like last year’s, there will be over 60 participants and writers from many different countries around the world sharing their work and their ideas with over 2000 attendees.

But the big news this year is that the headlining speaker is the utterly amazing Alain Mabanckou, a very accomplished and prolific writer whose body of work spans almost two decades. Mabanckou is known for his aesthetically innovative approach to storytelling as is evident in works Broken Class, African Psycho, and the more recent The Lights of Pointe-Noire. Last year, he held an historic appointment as Chair of Artistic Creation at the College the France.

Mabanckou writes both in French and in English. He is a poet, a novelist, and a literary scholar. In some ways, Mabanckou is the quintessential figure of African literature as a global form. Africa Writes festival attendees should consider themselves lucky to partake of his pioneering ideas about African literature and culture.

To book tickets to see Alain Mabanckou click here

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PS: If you’re still not sure wether you’ll attend the event, watch this video!

You don’t want to miss out on any key details about the festival. Here is what you can do to stay current: