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Africa as a story

More and more writers, poets, filmmakers and activists are talking about Africa from different points of view and perspectives, breaking stereotypes and breaking down the stories created by the West about African culture.

Kopano Matlwa

South Africa after Apartheid

Kopano Matlwa, a doctor and one of South Africa’s most outstanding young writers, speaks with Xavier Aldekoa, journalist and Africa correspondent, about how the younger generations are dealing with the legacy of apartheid.

Aída Bueno Sarduy

Colonial intimacy

The anthropologist and documentary filmmaker Aída Bueno Sarduy, a leading expert on the history of the African diaspora to Latin America, speaks about how colonialism worked in the domain of intimacy.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Talk with Anna Guitart

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the internationally best known Nigerian writers. In this conversation with culture journalist Anna Guitart, she speaks of key issues in her work such as the African diaspora, the issue of race, feminism and the political situation in the United States. Chimamanda ...

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Africa, Writing and Emancipation

In recent centuries western states have taken over as the world centre of cultural power. The renowned Kenyan writer and academic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o suggests that this centralised influence should be devolved to the different cultural spheres around the planet. Moreover, he ...

Mia Couto

My Africa

From his singular perspective as a scientist and poet, a white man and an African, and a novelist in a society with a long oral tradition, the celebrated Mozambican author and biologist Mia Couto offers a ver personal look at the African continent. Often, the noise of current events keeps us ...

NoViolet Bulawayo and Gemma Parellada

Dialogues for Thinking about Diversity

Is it possible to go beyond intermingling and cultural exchange when thinking about society and contemporary culture? Population flows are the pattern in a globalised world in which identities are being diluted and superimposed, and in which a mosaic is being constructed, contributing towards collective enrichment everywhere.

Taiye Selasi and Xavier Aldekoa

The Afropolitan Condition

African reality is richer, more complex and creative than might be gleaned from the media. A new generation of writers and journalists is changing our perception of a continent with over a thousand millions inhabitants and almost two thousand languages. At Kosmopolis 2015, Taiye Selasi, an ...

Akosua Adoma Owusu

New Voices of African Cinema

As part of the activities parallel to the “Making Africa” exhibition, Xcèntric brought American-born Ghanaian filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu to Barcelona. In 2013, her short film Kwaku Ananse was highly acclaimed at the Berlin International Film Festival. Conversation with Ako...

Colson Whitehead

A talk with the author of “The Underground Railroad: A Novel”

The writer Llucia Ramis talks with New York writer Colson Whitehead, author of six novels and several non-fiction works, who made his debut in 1999 with The Intuitionist and presents his book The Underground Railroad: A Novel (2016). The Underground Railroad narrates the escape of a slave girl from a plantation and her journey through different states in the south of the United States on board an allegorical train that refers to the clandestine network that helped slaves escape during the 19th century. ...

D'bi.young Anitafrika

Performance of the dub poet during Kosmopolis 2011

D’bi.young Anitafrika is an Afro-Jamaican dub poet, performing artist and activist known worldwide as a visionary, innovator and leader in developing arts education. Her totally innovative performance style, known as the sorplusi method, has had an impact on the ...

Chigozie Obioma

Africa as a story

Chigozie Obioma, author and assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, explains that his novel aims to “build a portrait of Nigeria at a very seminal moment in its history (the annulled presidential elections of 1993), and by so doing deconstruct and illuminate the ideological potholes that still impede the nation’s progress even today.”

I am not your periphery

Karo Moret

Afrofeminism or black feminism is a current of thought that defends that sexism, class oppression and racism are closely related with what is known as intersectionality. Karo Moret, a researcher at Pompeu Fabra University and expert in African culture, writes in this article about Afropeans, ...

Koyo Kouoh: "There is a generation that is changing the image of Africa"

Interview with Koyo Kouoh, member of the "Making Africa" exhibition advisory board

Koyo Kouoh, curator based in Dakar and member of the Making Africa exhibition advisory board, sheds light on “a young generation of savvy, creative, artistic, intellectual, political African people” who are less influenced by the heavy political history of Africa, and being influenced instead by the free Internet, mobility, access, on-the-click life style. A change that is shifting the fundamental on-look Africans have on their own image, and how they want to be perceived.