Literature lovers, writers and enthusiasts are in for a treat this coming weekend, as the Macondo Literary Festival returns for its sixth edition from September 18 to 20 at the Kenya Cultural Centre under the theme, Ink, Sea, Silence.
This year, the festival, founded by Macondo Book Society co-founder Anja Bengelstorff, who leads the festival alongside award-winning Kenyan novelist Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, continues “its exploration of Africa’s histories and futures through literature, while widening the conversation to music, film, dance, food and visual art.”
Speaking about the 2026 edition, Ms Bengelstorff said it would turn particular attention to cultural memory, archives and the African stories that have been erased, displaced or written by others.
“Africa’s story has been inscribed by many hands, not always in goodwill. It has been subject to the constrained and often violent imagination of others: re-inked, overwritten, twisted into shapes that served predatory visions, not truth,” she said. “Part of our festival discussions this year will examine how the writers of the many Africas are reclaiming the ink of their own becoming, and what scripts they are inscribing upon the present and future.”
The international guest list brings together writers from across Africa and its diasporas, as well as India and Brazil. Among them are:
- Esi Edugyan – known for ‘Washington Black’ and ‘Half-Blood Blues’
- Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin – celebrated for Sudanese historical and political fiction
- Emmanuel Iduma – known for his writing on art, photography and African contemporary culture
- Meena Kandasamy – whose poetry and fiction explore caste, gender and politics
- Lauri Kubuitsile – an award-winning Botswana novelist and short-story writer
- Yasmine El Rashidi – known for her novels and memoir-like explorations of Egypt
- Gaëlle Bélem – author of The Year of the Monkey
- Itamar Vieira Junior – whose “Torto Arado” became an acclaimed Brazilian novel
- Deepak Unnikrishnan – known for experimental fiction about migration and the Gulf
- Tochi Eze – a Nigerian writer
- Saïd Khatibi – an Algerian Arabic-language novelist and translator
- Dino Martins – Kenyan entomologist, naturalist and author.
Tickets are currently on sale for the event, which opens Friday with activities for emerging writers such as masterclasses, alongside children’s programming, poetry and performance, screenings and conversations.
