The celebrated British-Ghanaian editor and publisher Margaret Busby is set to headline the 2022 African Book Festival Berlin, curated by Caine Prize-winning South African author and filmmaker Lidudumalingani.

The event—sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and Berlin’s Senate Department for Culture and Europe, presented by the literary agency InterKontinental, and themed “Yesterday.Today.Tomorrow,”

The book festival will be held from 26-28 August 2022 in Berlin, Germany. The festival will “explore the connections between writers that endure from generation to generation.”

Busby has been a pioneering figure in celebrating this heritage. In the course of her expansive career, she has compiled and edited the anthologies Daughters of Africa (1992) and New Daughters of Africa (2019). The two volumes bring “together the work of more than 200 women writers of African descent from the 18th century on to the present day and spanning a range of genres – essays, memoirs, short prose, drama, poetry amongst others – portraying the diversity, richness and magnitude of African women writers around the globe.” The texts helped shape contemporary discourse on African feminism.

The African Book Festival Berlin was lunched in 2018.  The theme that year was “Writing in Migration,” with novelist Olumide Popoola, as curator.  The 2019 event, themed “Transitioning from Migration” and headlined by the novelist Ben Okri, was curated by the Zimbabwean novelist and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga. The 2020/21 event, themed “Telling the Origin Stories” was curated by Angolan musician and author Kalaf Epalanga and headlined by fellow Angolan author Jose Eduardo Agualusa.

With Lidudumalingani curating this year’s edition and Busby headlining, there is much to look forward to!