Lots to get into this week, so let’s do it!
On May 22, the Harlem Arts Alliance is hosting “Voices of the Coast,” an online exhibit and panel discussion that will “unite the voices and coasts of visual artists and cultural commentators from Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, and the African Diaspora.” The companion exhibition is scheduled for later this year.
Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate saw a picture “that would catapult her to global fame — not for what it showed, but for what it did not.” Great article in the New York Times exploring Nakate’s story of erasure, racism, being “a fighter for the people and the planet,” and her new book set for release this November.
And, hey, if you’re already at The New York Times, be sure to check out their Globetrotting feature of new and forthcoming international books. We’re thrilled to see our very own Madame Livingstone there!
Prepare to have your mind blown over at New Frame as Rofhiwa Maneta talks to multidisciplinary artist Nolan Dennis about his work a.sun.black, “an online game – or digital essay game, as he refers to it – that shares seminal Black liberation texts in the same fragmented way he was led to Black liberation theory.”
The pandemic has taken its toll on every aspect of life. This report from NPR’s All Things Considered explores how it has affected landmark Parisian bookstores. “Many people are now worried about the pandemic’s toll in this literary city where independent booksellers have long flourished.”
Author Claire Cox writes in LitHub on releasing a book during a pandemic: “As the world winnowed down to a peephole, I thought, naively, that things might be “normal” again when my book came out the following year. I was grateful for the timing, imagining I’d missed an unfortunate fate.”
I clicked on this, and you should, too “Apparently the Brontës all died so early because they spent their lives drinking graveyard water.”
Did you miss our cover reveal for our upcoming release Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa? Head over to Brittle Paper to check it out!
In more Catalyst news, Sifiso Mzobe’s Young Blood is keeping great company on this list from Book Riot: “20 Must-Read Crime Novels to Keep You Up at Night” You can also check out this great conversation in The Big Thrill magazine between Sifiso and fellow Catalyst author Joanne Hichens (Divine Justice)
Looking for to understand more about the Israel-Palestine crisis? Here are few lists to get you started: Five Books talks to Palestinian author and human rights organization founder Raja Shehadeh; Refinery29’s A Reading List To Understand The Israel-Palestine Crisis; Esquire’s “10 great books by Palestinian writers you’ll really want to read“; and from our friends at Haymarket Books, Free Palestine! A Reading List.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music presents DanceAfrica, “the nation’s largest festival of African dance.” This year’s (virtual) event play tribute to Haiti with the theme Vwa zanset yo: y’ap pale, n’ap danse!, in Haitian Creole, or “Ancestral voices: they speak… we dance!”
“In Afrikaans the word deur means both “door” and “through.” Perhaps the poem is about dualities, about doubts and paradoxes, even duplicity: doors can be opened by hammers and axes, but also by words.” A conversation with South African poet Ilse van Staden at World Literature Today
And finally, ever wished you could have a book cover to cover up your questionable taste in books? Have no fear, Respectable Book Covers™️ are here!
