• Interview

    Podcast #8: Safia Elhillo

    Safia Elhillo is an award-winning poet who performs regularly and whose writing has been published in various journals and anthologies, the New Daugthers of Africa anthology just being one of the latest one. In 2016, her chapbook Asmarani was included in the New Generation African Poets Box Set. Her debut collection The January Children,…

  • Interview

    Podcast #7: Zeba Talkhani

    Zeba Talkhani’s memoir My Past is a Foreign Country: A Muslim Feminist Finds Herself was published at the end of June and received blurbs by writers such as Meena Kandasamy and Ironesen Okojie. One of her previous essays, “The Difficulty in Being Good”, was part of the anthology Nasty Women. A Collection of…

  • Interview

    Podcast #6: Leslie Kuo

    Leslie Kuo describes herself on her website as “a librarian, a designer, a translator, and both a first and second generation immigrant”. Currently she works at the Berlin-Pankow Public Library District. She is part of the management team and responsible for a programme on ‘intercultural opening’ (a term we discuss within the podcast).…

  • Lists

    July, August, September: 15(+) Most-Anticipated Books

    The second half of 2019 began already a couple of days ago but I only now managed to finish my list of anticipated reads for July, August, and September. While July brings some really great publications, August and September promise to be unbelievably good book months. I could hardly choose which books to…

  • Interview

    Podcast #5: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

    Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s debut novel House of Stone was published in 2018 to much acclaim. It has been awarded the 2019 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize. Before the novel, Tshuma had…

  • Interview

    Podcast #4: Ellah Wakatama Allfrey

    Ellah Wakatama Allfrey is a former deputy editor at Granta magazine and former senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House. She has edited anthologies such as Africa 39. New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara and Safe House. Creative Non-Fiction From Africa. Allfrey has been a judge for a variety of literary prizes…

  • Review

    Moving Through the World (Happy?) Fat

    Last year in July, I almost fainted when I saw Danish UK-based comedian Sofie Hagen perform in Berlin. Now my near collapsing wasn’t so much swooning – though Sofie Hagen might merit that – but due to being stuck in a very small, very hot, and pretty much void of oxygen venue. But…

  • Lists

    Women’s Prize for Fiction: My Personal Shortlist

    Tonight at midnight the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist will be announced. So, a few hours left to be cheer for one’s favourite books on the list and guess what will actually make the cut. During the last two months, I have read (almost) all books of the longlist I had not yet read. Having…