The fifth edition of the Nairobi Litfest, co-presented by Book Bunk and Hay Festival Global, runs from 8 to 10 May 2026, and the programme they have assembled is one of the most ambitious in the festival’s short history. Held at McMillan Memorial Library on the occasion of the institution’s 95th anniversary, this year’s edition is organised around the idea of speculative cartography, the imaginative remapping of borders, worlds, and possibilities, and the South-to-South connections that make new ways of knowing visible. Writers, artists, filmmakers, activists, and thinkers from across Africa and the world descend on Nairobi for three days of conversations, masterclasses, performances, and a dance party.

Friday opens with a strong slate of masterclasses. Ugandan poet and playwright Nick Makoha, recently shortlisted for the 2025 T.S. Eliot Prize, leads a two-hour poetry session titled Black Ekphrastic Mode, exploring how Black artists use visual art as a site of memory and resistance. Ellah Wakatama OBE, Chair of the Caine Prize, runs a self-editing workshop for writers with finished manuscripts, supported by the Caine Prize. Nigerian chess champion and Guinness World Record holder Tunde Onakoya, who holds the record for the longest marathon chess game, brings his chess masterclass to Book Bunk’s young learners. Kenyan indie publisher Ciku Kimeria offers a practical workshop on navigating the world of indie publishing. And Chilean novelist and scholar Lina Meruane, Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, opens the day with a two-hour roundtable for emerging writers on long and short form fiction.

Saturday’s main stage programme is where the literary fireworks begin. Congolese novelist and UCLA Professor of Literature Alain Mabanckou, whose Broken Glass was ranked among the 100 best books of the 21st century by the Guardian and who has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize twice, opens proceedings in conversation with beloved Kenyan novelist Yvonne Owuor, the two of them interrogating the necessity of imagination and the challenge of received truths. Caine Prize winners Lesley Nneka Arimah and Makena Onjerika join newcomer Shani Akilah for a spotlight on short fiction, moderated by Wakatama. Ntone Edjabe of the iconic Chimurenga magazine joins fellow journal editors for a conversation on the art and endurance of the literary journal. Kenyan literary legend David Maillu, author of more than 60 books and whose 1974 novel After 4:30 recently had a new lease on life with a reissue, sits down with Nyambura Mutanyi for a retrospective on post-independence Kenyan fiction. And Burundian playwright Laura Sheïlla Inangoma’s Sisters of the East, a monologue set in a Khartoum prison exploring resistance and the morality of survival, is performed for the first time in Nairobi by Kenyan playwright Sitawa Namwalie.

Sunday closes out the festival with equal force. British-Nigerian poet and playwright Inua Ellams joins Kenyan essayist Nanjala Nyabola and Natasha Brown, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and Chair of the 2026 International Booker Prize judges, for a conversation on identity, otherness, and language as emotional instrument. Lola Shoneyin, founder and director of the Aké Arts and Book Festival, appears alongside Tunde Onakoya and DJ Ziggie Gitungo for a discussion on the “third space”, the curated gatherings that build culture and community beyond the marketplace. Nigerian writer and performer Wana Udobang joins a panel on experiments in form across literature, poetry, film, and visual art. And Sunday’s closing session brings Nick Makoha back to the main stage alongside Caribbean poet Safiya Sinclair, whose memoir How to Say Babylon won the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize, for a frank conversation on how mothers materialise in fiction and in life. Alain Mabanckou also returns for a second conversation, this time on history, clarity, and the responsibilities of the truthteller.

Several events are available to watch online via registration on the Hay Festival website. The full programme is available here.