The Brown Shuga Books Festival is back, and its 2026 edition, taking place on 18 April at Holywell Community Centre in Watford, is shaping up to be the most exciting yet!

Running from 11am to 6pm, the festival is a full-day celebration of Black literature, identity, and community, built around the kind of programming that centres African and diaspora voices not as a niche interest but as the main event. Tickets are available now, and with a lineup like this, they are worth securing early.

The headline guest for 2026 is the legendary Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwean novelist, playwright, and filmmaker whose debut novel Nervous Conditions (1988) is among the most celebrated works in the African literary canon. Joining her is Brian Chikwava, the Zimbabwean-British author of Harare North; T.L. Huchu, whose Edinburgh-based supernatural fiction has earned him a devoted readership on both sides of the Atlantic; and Amon Chizema, Busisekile Khumalo, Laurène, Muminah Koleoso, Ayanda Xaba, Dami Adebiyi, and Munukayumbwa Mwiya, a lineup that spans fiction, poetry, and nonfiction across multiple African and diaspora literary traditions.

The Brown Shuga Books Festival was founded with a clear purpose: to create a space where Black readers and writers feel genuinely centred, not just included. Its programming embraces the full breadth of what it means to embrace identity through literature.

All the details about Brown Shuga Books Festival 2026 can be found at brownshugabooksfestival.co.uk. The festival also welcomes volunteers and participant applications, which will open two months before the event. If you are based in the UK and looking for a literary gathering that feels like it was made with you in mind, put 18 April in your diary.