Open Book Festival

20/11/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 17 NOV: Exploring the Q***r Imaginary
Kelly-Eve Koopman, Kopano Maroga and Maneo Mohale speak to Lwando Scott about building alternate presents and futures.

🎙️ 19 NOV: Stories of Rebellion
Foluso Agbaje, Lesedi Molefi and Nathi Ngubane speak to Pumla Dineo Gqola about subverting power and fighting back.

🎙️ 21 NOV: RMF 10 Years Later

Mam' Nozi, Kealeboga Mase Ramaru, Carbon Wandile Dlamini and Patricia Bevie talk to Noluthando Moadi about the pursuit of repair, reckoning and restorative politics in the aftermath of a movement that 'shut down the rainbow nation'

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel
🔗 Links in bio

19/11/2025

We honour all of the women who make our country what it is and, alongside Women for Change, demand that Gender-Based Violence be declared a National Disaster.

On Friday the 21st, women are called upon to withdraw from the economy.

Inclusivity is at the core of The Open Book Festival where we value contributors of all genders, s*xualities and race.

📚 We have put together reading lists that support South African women and their vital perspectives.
🎙️ To find relevant talks we have created a YouTube playlist that engages with topics of gender and injustice.

For more information, and to sign the petition, visit https://womenforchange.co.za/g20-women-shutdown/

12/11/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 10 Nov: Tensions of Home
Antjie Krog, Frankie Murrey and Sarah Uheida speak to Bongani Kona about writing one’s way to belonging.

🎙️ 12 Nov: African Cosmologies As A World of Magnitude
Zara Julius, Vusumzi Ngxande and Jeffrey Rakabe speak to Wanelisa Xaba about turning away from modernity and exploring the multilayeredness of African cosmologies.

🎙️ 14 Nov: Finding Lightness
Sven Axelrad, Khaya Dlanga and Karen Vermeulen speak to Dela Gwala about the necessity of humour to process pain.

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel
🔗 Links in bio

07/11/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 3 NOV: Conversations with Mohale - Are We Tired Yet?
Pumla Dineo Gqola, Goretti Kyomuhendo and Zulaikha Patel speak to Mohale Mashigo about emotional exhaustion and crisis fatigue.

🎙️ 5 NOV: Unsettled Accounts - The Interpreters
Alexandra Dodd, Bongani Kona and Antjie Krog discuss memoir and personal nonfiction as ways of grappling with memory, complicity, silence and shame with Hedley Twidle.

🎙️ 7 NOV: Inherited systems
Rebecca Gore, Adekeye Adebajo and Edgar Pieterse speak to Alexandra Dodd about colonial structures that we are born into and that we either uphold, resist, or remake. These authors explore how systems define the parameters of justice, survival, and hope—and what it might take to transform them.

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel
🔗 Links in bio

29/10/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 27 OCT: Created in Africa
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, James Murua & Rèmy Ngamije discuss their efforts to spotlight African writing with Mervyn Sloman. Brought to you by the African Literary Cities Project.

🎙️ 29 OCT: Traumatised Cities
David Cornwell, Caryn Dolley & Nthato Mokgata explore the structured violence and alienation of the urban, both past and present, with Edgar Pieterse. Brought to you by African Literary Cities Project.

🎙️ 31 OCT: Director's Choice - Literary Spaces & Belonging
Festival Director Mervyn Sloman talks to Mohale Mashigo, Lesedi Molefi & Mbali Sikakana about how Black writers are expected to perform after publishing, navigating white spaces, and why these conversations persist.

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website www.openbookfestival.co.za
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/

21/10/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 20 OCT: Q***ring Intimacy
Azille Coetzee, Alistair Mackay & Kopano Maroga discuss s*x and desire outside of heteronormative expectations with Cèline Tshika

🎙️ 22 OCT: The Republic
A conversation between Wale Lawal, editor at The Republic, and Will Shoki, editor of Africa is a Country

🎙️ 24 OCT: The Body Keeps the Score
Popina Khumanda, Malika Ndlovu & Jeffrey Rakabe explore the scars of trauma and the personal revolution to get to the other side with Firdose Moonda

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website: https://openbookfestival.co.za/podcasts/
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/

***rVoices

15/10/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

🎙️ 13 OCT: Fluency and Trauma
Siphokazi Jonas, Athambile Masola & Ryan Pedro explore finding language to hold one's past with Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal. Brought to you by the Centre for Rhetoric Studies.

🎙️ 15 OCT: From Pan Africanism to the Black Atlantic
Adekeye Adebajo & Bibi Bakare-Yusuf discuss rethinking our frameworks and identities to understand what it means to be Black and African with Maneo Mohale

🎙️ 17 OCT: Out of This World Into the Next
Renowned theoretical physicist Adriana Marais speaks to Jacinta Delhaize & Daniel Cunnama from The Cosmic Savannah podcast about the scientific and technical possibilities of extraplanetary settlement

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website www.openbookfestival.co.za
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/

06/10/2025

📚 More conversations from Open Book Festival 2025!

Catch up on these powerful sessions, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 6 OCT: The Secret Keepers
Nadia Cassim, Bonnie Espie & Andrew Robert Wilson discuss how the truth refuses to remain hidden with Palesa Motsumi

🎙️ 8 OCT: Living in Crisis
Veruska De Vita, Saliem Fakir & Alistair Mackay explore the climate catastrophe and their work with Natalie Sifuma

🎙️ 10 OCT: Difficult Mothers
Antjie Krog, Lebo Mazibuko & Malika Ndlovu examine the complex relationship between independent daughters and mothers with Buhle Ngaba

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website www.openbookfestival.co.za
💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/

01/10/2025

📚 Miss the festival? Relive the magic!

Open Book Festival 2025 sessions are now available as video and podcast recordings, dropping every Monday, Wednesday & Friday:

🎙️ 29 SEP: Banging on the Walls of the Tank Haidar Eid & Usuf Chikte discuss essays written during the ongoing crisis in Gaza

🎙️ 1 OCT: No Signs of Justice Caryn Dolley, Rebecca Gore & Julian Jansen examine South Africa's criminal justice system with Dan Corder

🎙️ 3 OCT: Building on the Past Foluso Agbaje, Zara Julius & Patric Tariq Mellet explore our cities' complex histories with Aphiwe Ngalo

🎧 Podcast available now on all streaming platforms and on our website www.openbookfestival.co.za

💻 Watch videos on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/

17/09/2025

Your opinion shapes our future events!

We're gathering feedback to enhance your experience and show our impact to funders. Anonymous, quick, and every response counts 🙌

Scan the QR code or click here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSesKrVPk5X--LQffILkeiFzx83BFn2DImpc-9PHHF4Udup58A/viewform

16/09/2025

If you find yourself missing Open Book Festival, enjoy this beautiful conversation between poets Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese and Sarah Uheida, recorded by Pagecast at .

Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episod...

11/09/2025

Award-winning writer Diane Awerbuck perfectly captures the magic of Open Book 2025 - three days where local and international authors wove their 'golden thread' of stories around time, memory, and hope. A must-read reflection on our festival. 📚

"To make sense of things for yourself and then for others is a joyous burden, the purpose of many of these writers’ professional lives. They write for collective repair. We owe these diplomats a debt we cannot repay, except by buying their books. Reading their books. Talking about them. One audien...