The Macondo Literary Festival proudly returns for its fifth edition this September, under the theme Chronicles & Currents. The 2025 edition will take place from September 19–21, 2025 in Nairobi and will cast its net wide across the Atlantic, spotlighting the literary, historical, and cultural ties between Africa, South America, and the Caribbean.

The Macondo Book Society, founded by journalist Anja Bengelstorff and award-winning Kenyan author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, organizes literary festivals that promote literature and authors of and from Africa beyond linguistic borders. With this fifth edition, they’re deepening that vision to explore transatlantic literary connections.

The festival’s theme Chronicles & Currents speaks to the flow of stories across borders and generations. It asks what is carried in the stories we inherit, what is erased, what resurfaces, and how literature can act as both a ritual of remembrance and a compass for the future. “If there was ever a time to explore how stories travel between continents and carry cultural memory, this is it,” the festival organizers explain.

More than 11 acclaimed writers from Kenya and across the globe will convene at the Kenya Cultural Centre for three days of literary exchange. The lineup includes Itamar Vieira Junior (Brazil), Daniel Hahn (UK), José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola), Cristina Bendek (Colombia), Priya Hein (Mauritius), Marcia Douglas (Jamaica), Joaquim Arena (Cape Verde), Kevin Jared Hosein (Trinidad & Tobago), Yamen Manai (Tunisia), Yewande Omotoso (Nigeria/South Africa), and Karen Lord (Barbados).

The festival will include panels, masterclasses, book signings, baraza sessions, and youth activities. Special programming includes Kenya Writes, a platform for emerging Kenyan voices, Poetry Hotspot for interactive word play, Kids’ Corner for young readers, and Macondo Baraza conversations merging literature with dialogue on Kiswahili, history, and identity. The festival builds on a renewed focus on Global Africa, amplifying voices that challenge colonial narratives and celebrate diasporic connections.

Rooted in Nairobi and reaching across oceans, the Macondo Literary Festival continues to build a global literary home that is bold, inclusive, and deeply human.