“Skokiaan” is a popular tune originally written by Zimbabwean musician August Musarurwa that has been covered by many musician, including Louis Armstrong. Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu chats with Regina Bain, Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, about the song and about Armstrong’s tours through the African Continent in the 50s and 60s.
Winsome Pinnock’s most recent play, Rockets and Blue Lights, takes the audience on a deep dive into J. M. W. Turner’s painting “The Slave Ship,” asking questions about received and shared history. She is joined by past prize recipient Branden-Jacobs Jenkins in a discussion about how theater can help us look more fully into history.
A complementary display of works by J. M. W. Turner, including sketchbook drawings and color studies, finished watercolors, and prints, will be on view in the Yale Center for British Study Room that day.
In addition to her novels, Tsitsi Dangarembga has also written, directed, and produced a number of films. In My Father’s Village is a powerful short film about the inheritance of trauma that she produced in 2017. Tsitsi will introduce the film, discuss its creation with Professor of History and African Studies Dan Magaziner, and answer questions from the audience.
Two of today’s most innovative fiction writers—André Alexis and Laird Hunt—discuss fiction, fable, and form in this wide-ranging discussion on the art of writing.
Niel Gray Jr. Professor of English Langdon Hammer talks with poet Zaffar Kunial about the sources of his poetry, from song lyrics to family histories to his undying love for the sport of English cricket.
Margo Jefferson spent most of her brilliant career as a critic for major magazines and newspapers before transitioning into writing that combines her critical acumen with personal narrative in thrilling ways. In this talk and conversation with Daphne A. Brooks, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Music, Margo discusses how the personal is an essential element of the critical, and vice-versa.
Start your festival day with free coffee and treats, book and tote bag giveaways, and a short reading by poet Jonah Mixon-Webster.
Ishion Hutchinson will play a mash up of Jamaican music—ska, rocksteady, reggae and especially 1970s dub. Cooking up a dancing elixir, other genres will also be played. The session will be interspersed with performance of original dub poetry and a screening of a short film. Guest DJ appearance by Jonah Mixon-Webster.
Iconic local restaurant Sandra’s Next Generation will also be serving up a soul food feast!
Prize-winning theater artist Sharon Bridgforth will pull cards from her dat Black Mermaid Man Lady Oracle Deck and dem Blessings Deck. Based on the cards, she and moderator Shamain McAllister will offer questions and conversation for our journey. You are invited to engage, connect, celebrate, and be witnessed. “I always ask, what does Infinite Love want us to Know?”
Tsitsi Dangarembga and Assistant Professor of English and Humanities Ernest Mitchell discuss the hundreds of black and white photographs Richard Wright took in 1953 during a ten-week visit to West Africa to research his book Black Power (1954), an account of the Gold Coast’s transition to the independent nation of Ghana.
