We are excited to announce our collaboration with Book Bunk for NBO Litfest. This year’s edition of NBO Litfest took place from June 27 to June 30 at Nairobi’s Kaloleni Library, Eastlands Library, and McMillan Memorial Library. Through this partnership, we aim to elevate NBO Litfest’s international presence, expand our audience reach, and transform it into an annual spectacle. Get ready for an extraordinary NBO Litfest in June, filled with inspiration, creativity, and the joy of literature. Most events have been recorded and are now available to watch for free. Just click on the event and you will be redirected to the video recording.
This is a workshop offering digital teaching tools run by Ukombozi Library, a Kenyan archive of progressive media. The session will be based on Africa is a Country’s 'Revolutionary Papers', a year long series on the archival remnants of African and black diaspora anti-colonial movement materials to retrieve a politics and pedagogy that challenge the contemporary cooptation of radical histories.
For the little ones, we kick off with an immersion in stories! Featuring a selection of 200 beautiful brand-new books specially selected to help young learners and their teachers learn and discover the joy of reading. With guidance from master storyteller, Orpah Agunda, adventures come alive.
The Children's Corner is back! This time the space also features arts and crafts activities available across the day. Don’t miss out on this vibrant, engaging hub designed to inspire the little ones to explore the joy of reading. We have a variety of diverse activities on offer including storytelling sessions, iInteractive workshops, board games, book nooks and more. The Children's Corner is a place where every child can embark on a literary adventure, discover new worlds and let their creativity soar. Join us for a day full of fun, learning, and unforgettable memories!
A creative writing session with Ayanna Lloyd Banwo on how to infuse your writing with specificity drawn from lived experience interwoven with research and imagination. Ayanna Lloyd Banwois a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. Her debut novel When We Were Birds was the 2023 winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, and the American Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the McKitterick Prize and named one of the UK Observer’s Best Debuts and The Economist’s Best Books of 2022. Her short fiction and non-fiction have been published in Moko Magazine, Small Axe and PREE, among others and shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She is the 2023 winner of the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award and was named a 2024 Rising Star in UK writing by The National Centre for Writing and The British Council.
Learn where to look within to re-language personal experiences and harness joy, pain and despair at world events into poetry with Ngwatilo Mawiyoo.
Ngwatilo Mawiyoo is a Kenyan writer, filmmaker, and actor best known for her work as a poet. Her ongoing writing project,Witness & Dream explores the lived experience of diverse rural Kenyan communities. The project took her to live with several families, each over a period of 10 days. These travels were the subject of her thesis at the University of British Columbia’s Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program, and in large part her 2016 chapbook, Dagoretti Corner, edited by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes. Her first collection, Blue Mothertongue, was published in 2010.
Ngwatilo’s poems have appeared in Wasafiri, Transition, Johannesburg Review of Books, Obsidian, Kwani? and elsewhere. She's been twice shortlisted for Brunel University’s African Poetry Prize, and twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is also a past Callaloo fellow and has been a Bundanon Trust Residency recipient through The Africa Centre.
Follow an exciting adventure in a land where magic is forbidden and Ebony, a young witch sets out to defeat the evil queen and free magic once more, but her path is filled with terrible dangers, new friends and new loves. Will Ebony succeed or fall to dragon fire?
Don’t miss this interactive reading session with Venna Odhiamboand Velia Vidal. These authors will share their original children and young adult works with our young audiences.
Step into a hands-on zine-making adventure where scissors are sacred, glue is bold, and the mess is half the magic. This isn’t just a workshop, it's a creative playground run by Ethiopian artist, Tizzita Teffera where you’ll cut, paste, layer, scribble, question, and collage your way into self-expression. Zines; punky, poetic, political are made for anyone with something to say. You’ll dive into a delicious mix of images, textures, words, and wildness, using everything from the mundane to the mystical to create something personal, radical, or just plain weird.
Whether you're into memory, myth, rebellion, or ritual, there's space for it here. Expect a little history on punk publishing & zines, a lot of experimentation, and a co-created space full of curiosity, wonder, and joyful chaos. You’ll leave with something that reflects you in fragments, folds, and gluey fingerprints.
No experience needed. Just bring an open heart, curious hands, and a willingness to play.
Tizzita Teffera is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist whose work explores ritual, mythology, memory, shame, and the shadow self. Weaving together Ethiopian and Kenyan cultural influences, she uses poetry, print, photography, and found materials including archival images to navigate themes of femininity, healing, and personal myth. Her work exists at the intersection of the seen and unseen, always in conversation with transformation.
The Craft of Photojournalism: A Journey from Sight to Insight
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TBA
Are you interested in photojournalism, whether as a passion or a career path? Don’t miss this interactive two-hour masterclass with Luis Tato, Chief Photographer and Photo Coordinator for East Africa and the Indian Ocean at Agence France-Presse.
He is also the winner of the 2021 and 2025 World Press Photo contest. Gain insights from his years of experience behind the lens and learn about the work that goes on in the photo department of one of the world’s largest international news agencies.
Luis Tato has a degree in audiovisual communication and began his career covering Spain’s Financial Crisis for print media, news agencies and several NGOs. He then became a regular contributor to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia covering daily news and sports. Later, he combined his work covering mainly East Africa as a stringer for Agence France-Presse and other international publications while developing his own photojournalism projects with a focus on sociology, identity and resilience. Tato has gained numerous honours including the Rémi Ochlik Award and Picture of the Year International awards among others.
Masterclass: On the Mic: Crafting Your Voice in Podcasting
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TBA
2024 Podcast of the Year winners, Chinny Ukata and Astrid Madimba of It’s a Continent podcast bring their expertise in broadcasting in a session focused on how to achieve longevity and stay fresh on the microphone.
Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata are hosts of It’s a Continent, a podcast celebrating Africa’s diverse past and present, and authors of the book of the same name, highlighting the consequences of colonialism and how this legacy reverberates today.
This event has taken place
With the support of Open Society Foundations, South to North series
Africa Is a Country is celebrating the release of its first print edition, Revolution Deferred? 15 Years of Mass Protest in Africa at The Mist in Westlands (The Mall). The evening, presented in partnership with the Nairobi Litfest, will feature panel discussions with authors from Africa Is a Country, and will include their collaborative partner Revolutionary Papers, who will help contextualize the legacy of radical publishing they hope to build on. Join up for food, drinks, and exciting discussion. RSVP here.
Wanjiru Koinange, Maureen Mumbua and Dennis Maina in conversation
Kenya, Meet Your Libraries
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Green Bunk Stage
In 2020, Book Bunk set out to better understand Kenya’s public libraries; their histories, collections, architecture, as well as the people who use them. At the time, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) had listed Kenya as having the highest number of libraries in Africa. We wanted to see them all. Three years later, in 2023, we did just that! We visited every public library in the country. This presentation-style event shares the story of that journey and what we learned along the way: about the state of our libraries, the communities they serve, and what they reveal about Kenya herself. It also marks the official launch of Book Bunk’s Library Ecosystem Research Report; a milestone publication that maps the present and reimagines the future of Kenya’s libraries. Wanjiru Koinange, Maureen Mumbua, andDennis Maina in conversation.
Ntone Edjabe, Prof. Tanya Hernández and Rosie Olang in conversation with Ayisha Osori
Everything is political
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Green Bunk Stage
How do multidisciplinary artists and academics find the right avenues to address the state of the world? Hear from Ntone Edjabe, aCameroonian writer, journalist, DJ and the founding editor of Chimurenga magazine. He will be joined by Prof. Tanya Hernández, an author of books on global anti-Blackness whose most recent nonfiction release is Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality, and Rosie Olang, a Kenyan writer, artist and independent curator, about their radical and unconventional practices. In conversation with Ayisha Osori.
This event has taken place
With the support of the Ford Foundation-Malunga: Network for Global Justice
Dennis Mugaa, Sandra Nekh and Joan Thaitah in conversation with Otieno Owino
Emerging voices in Kenyan fiction
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Green Bunk Stage
Curious to know what the path to publishing entails? Three emerging Kenyan authors speak on their journeys so far. Dennis Mugaawon the 2022 Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest and published a debut short story collection, Half Portraits Under Water, Sandra Nekh is a filmmaker and lecturer with several novels independently published in Nairobi and Joan Thaitah is a lawyer and the writer behind the popular Confessions of Nairobi series featuring candid conversations with men and women living in the city. In conversation with Otieno Owino.
Goretti Kyomuhendo in conversation with Frankline Sunday
Book Talk: Promises
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Book Talk Stage
One-on-one discussion with Goretti Kyomuhendo about her new novel, Promises that exposes the shadow world of illegal immigrants, and the creativity with which people in the legal margins rise to meet an inhumane system. In conversation with Frankline Sunday.
Dipo Faloyin and Sani Ladan in conversation with Nyambura Mutanyi
The injustice of being misunderstood
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Ikulu Stage
A journalist and memoirist discuss the power of image-making in the face of prevailing misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa. Dipo Faloyin is a journalist and the author of Africa Is Not a Country. Cameroonian author and human right activist, Sani Ladan's book La luna está en Duala: Y mi destino en el conocimiento (The Moon Is in Duala: And My Destiny, in Knowledge) outlines his experience with migration and geopolitics. In conversation with Nyambura Mutanyi.
This event has taken place
With the support of AC/E, Acción Cultural Española
Keith Ang'ana, Christine Mungai and Faith Odhiambo in conversation with Wanjeri Gakuru
Imagine Freedom: Where do we go from here?
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Green Bunk Stage
Why was it not possible to transform the momentum of the June-July protests into a political movement with a vision and strategy? As the country marks one year since the Gen-Z revolution, what can we learn from the events of that time and what unfolded after? We seek insights from Christine Mungai, News Editor of Pan-African newspaper The Continent and former Curator at Baraza Media Lab; Keith Ang'ana, a writer, editor, and one of the founders of Qwani, a vibrant youth-led initiative and Faith Odhiambo, President of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). In conversation with Wanjeri Gakuru.
Velia Vidalexplores her latest book, Tidal Waters, which is a vision of how creating something for your community and yourself is a way of reading and writing your way into a known place and a new self. In conversation withWendy Njoroge.
Indian comedian, writer and actor, Aditi Mittaland award-winning Kenyan stand up, Ty Ngachiraare no strangers to the stage. Join them for a witty and candid discussion on how stand up comedy provides audiences with tough truths and catharsis.
This event has taken place
With the support of Open Society Foundations, South to North series
