Kalaf Epalanga was announced as the curator for Berlin’s African Book Festival 2020 on September 23, 2019. The festival runs from April 17-19, 2020 with the theme “Telling the Origin Stories.”
In April 2018, writers from across the African continent converged on Berlin for the African Book Festival with Chris Abani as the headliner. Booklovers in their hundreds visited the German city’s Babylon Theatre for book presentations, readings, poetry, concerts, interviews and panel discussions. Curated by Olumide Popoola, the festival looked at transnationalism and migration in a more literary sense of “keeping in motion”. The festival returned in 2019 with author and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga as curator and Ben Okri as headliner with the theme “Transitioning from Migration.“
InterKontinental, the organisers of the African Book Festival, have announced the curator for 2020; musician and author Kalaf Epalanga. Epalanga is a Writer and musician born in Benguela, Angola and based in Berlin. As a musician, he co-founded the record label Enchufada, a creative and dynamic platform that promotes new music styles from Lisbon around the world, and went on to form the MTV Europe Music Award-winning band, Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016).
He wrote a regular column of short literary chronicles for the prestigious Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola and collaborates regularly with the Brazilian literary Magazine Quatro Cinco Um.
He has published in Angola and Portugal two collections of literary chronicles Estórias de Amor para Meninos de Cor (English: Lovestories for kids of color, 2011) and O Angolano que Comprou Lisboa (Por Metade do Preço) (English: The Angolan who Bought Lisbon (at Half the Price), 2014).
Também os Brancos Sabem (English: The Whites Also Can Dance, Editorial Caminho, 2017) published in Angola, Portugal and Brasil, is his first novel and was critically acclaimed in the Portuguese-speaking world.
Kalaf Epalanga now takes the centre stage with Angola under the capture “Telling the Origin Stories”, presenting literature, poetry, and music from Portuguese-speaking parts of the world.
Lusophone Africa gets a seat at the table. We appreciate this.
2 replies on “Kalaf Epalanga is Berlin’s African Book Festival 2020 curator.”
[…] the best writers from Africa to Berlin was looking rosy as musician and author Kalaf Epalanga was announced the curator and José Eduardo Agualusa was announced as headliner. It was going swimmingly until a global […]
[…] it was started it has been curated by Olumide Popoola in 2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga in 2019, and Kalaf Epalanga in 2020. With the Covid pandemic, the festival was truncated in the two years of 2020 and 2021 so there was […]