Living in the Melancholony

Join us for a conversation on contemporary African and Afro-diasporic writing with Sulaiman Addonia, Brian Chikwava, Shady Lewis, and Fiston Mwanza Mujila and his translator Roland Glasser – chaired by Irenosen Okojie – at Bard Books in East London.

'Living in the Melancholony' aims to describe both the structures and affects of living in a world founded on extractive systems and logics. The event is titled after the Editorial of our 125th issue, which features a range of writing from across the African continent, evoking varied emotions, grammars, textures, and sensations of what it is like to live in certain worlds or 'melancholonies', from distinct African/Afro-diasporic perspectives.

Together, these fiction writers will discuss how their work speaks to colonial and racial capitalist legacies through blending and often queering different forms, registers, and temporalities. There will also be readings by each author from their latest novels.