Kweli Journal has announced the 2026 Kweli International Literary Festival, a hybrid festival for writers of color that runs from November 14 to December 10. African and diaspora voices are well represented, including Nigerian author Chika Unigwe, who will teach virtual craft talks and master classes, and Ethiopian-born author Dinaw Mengestu, who closes the first day of the in-person opening weekend in New York City with a fireside chat. The festival presents the opening weekend as the year’s best chance to connect with agents, editors, and fellow creatives of color.

The in-person opening takes place Saturday, November 14, and Sunday, November 15, at New York Law School and Akwaaba Mansion, which are co-sponsoring the event. The keynote speaker is Imani Perry, the 2023 MacArthur Fellow and winner of the National Book Award for South to America. She will appear in conversation with writer Jaha Nailah Avery on Sunday, November 15, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm in the Akwaaba Mansion ballroom. Perry’s most recent book is Black in Blues, published in January 2025.

Saturday’s program runs in two parallel tracks of breakout sessions called “Midwife” and “Doula.” They include a session on the editing process, “Three Lawyers Walk into a Writing Workshop,” with three Kweli mentees and moderated by Laura Pegram, Kweli’s founding editor and publisher. Yasmin Adele Majeed, author of Side Streams, teaches “Faith and Fiction.” Literary agent Elianna Kan and author JP Infante discuss photography as a source for fiction, using Infante’s Aquí y Allá as a starting point. Ebonya Lia, Hasan Dudar, and Erica Frederick talk about the author-agent relationship, moderated by agent Iwalani Kim. Jori Lewis, author of A Natural History of the Spirits, and Emily Raboteau, author of Lessons for Survival, discuss ecowriting, with Abhigna Mooraka moderating. Tracey Rose Peyton teaches a session on writing historical fiction, and Dawn Davis, publisher of 37 INK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, speaks on writing compelling secondary characters.

The day’s two fireside chats close the program. Isabella Hammad reads from her forthcoming novel Our Names and talks with Ata Hindi. The novel is set at the 1955 Bandung Conference, the first major gathering of leaders from newly decolonized Asian and African states, and follows a friendship between a young Lebanese delegate and an Indian Parsi photojournalist. The book should interest readers of African and postcolonial literature. Dinaw Mengestu, author of Someone Like Us, then closes the day. Born in Ethiopia, he came to the United States at the age of two. His novels The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, How to Read the Air, All Our Names, and Someone Like Us were all named New York Times Notable Books, and he is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow.

After opening weekend, the festival continues online through December 10 with the Art of the Short Story, Art of the Novel, and Art of the Essay craft talks and master classes. The teaching artists include Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, and Chika Unigwe, winner of the 2025 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction. Unigwe’s latest novel, Grace, is out in the UK from Canongate in 2026 and will be published in the US in 2027. The festival’s short-film program includes the New York premiere of Tao Leigh Goffe’s Black Pacific, Chinese Atlantic, which follows a boy born between the British colonial ports of Kingston and Hong Kong.

Throughout the fall, free readings and conversations take place at Akwaaba Mansion, 347 MacDonough Street in Brooklyn, each from 6:30 to 8:30 pm Eastern. Alexia Nader appears on The Meaning of Daughter on Thursday, November 5, as a pre-festival event. Naima Coster discusses Take What You Can on Tuesday, December 1. LaToya Watkins discusses The Book of Chuck on Thursday, December 3, moderated by Shelbey Monae. Valeria Luiselli discusses Beginning Middle End on Tuesday, December 8, moderated by Ana Oropeza-Parra. Edwidge Danticat will also appear on her new novel Déy, which the festival describes as a National Book Award finalist, though the date and details are still to come. To attend the free events, email events@kwelijournal.org.

Registration includes in-person opening weekend tickets, the keynote conversation, breakout sessions on both days, and access to the multimedia readings, conversations, and craft talks. Register here.