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Reading & discussion with the poets Johannes Anyuru (SWE) | Radna Fabias (NLD) | Roger Robinson (GBR) | Victoria Adukwei Bulley (GBR) and the curator, editor and poet Fiston Mwanza Mujila (AUT) | Hosted by: Olumide Popoola, writer (GBR)

Fiston Mwanza Mujila is not just a poet and writer, he is also a collector of voices and poems. Born in 1981 in the Congo, he now lives in Graz, and has made a name for himself in Europe primarily with his acclaimed novel, “Tram 83”. He has called the gap where an anthology of poems by Black European poets is missing by name and has worked with passion over the past few years on closing it.

Initiated and curated by author Fiston Mwanza Mujila in cooperation with the Haus für Poesie, an anthology is coming out this Summer from Verlag Das Wunderhorn featuring, in German translation, 33 poets born or (literarily) socialised in Europe. The anthology places the work in a common context which is not limited to Blackness, instead showing aesthetic and artistic positions which have come about within and from a European environment – a polyphony of origins, experiences and cultural and linguistic influences; as part of the literature of Europe.

Four of the poets featured in the anthology are reading their poems and having a discussion for the poesiefestival berlin about poetry, authorship, the meaning of Blackness and dimensions of African diaspora.

Reading and discussion in English and German with English and German subtitles.

Curated by: Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Project leader: Juliane Otto
Project assistant: Acèle Nadale

Unheard Poetry acknowledges the kind support of the Swedish Arts Council, the Embassy of Sweden, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Nederlands Letterenfonds / Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Austrian Cultural Foundation.

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