A New Black and African Literature Festival in New York
by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
Efe Paul Azino is the Director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival, now in its tenth year. He is a spoken-word poet and writer. He is also the founder of a new literature festival based in New York City. In this conversation, we discuss the new New York Black and African Literature Festival happening between September 5 and 8, its goals and ambitions, and Azino’s work as a poet and custodian of culture.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tell me the inspiration behind the New York Black & African Literature Festival, and what you’re trying to achieve with it?
The Festival grew out of a conviction that the cultural and political conversations linking continental Africa and its global diasporas need intentional spaces to flourish. While there are many points of contact, those exchanges are often fragmented, shaped by uneven access, structural inequities, and a global cultural economy that still privileges certain narratives over others. New York, with its layered history as a site of arrival, exile, and reinvention, felt like the right place to create such a space. The New York Black and African Literature Festival aims to be a bridge connecting writers, poets, and thinkers from across the Black world, one that expands the circulation of African and diasporic literary and cultural production, and creates a meeting ground for ideas, solidarities, and collaborations that outlast the festival itself.
How does the Festival fit into current conversations in the age of Trump, amid worries about funding for the arts, and about freedom of speech, taking place in a world in chaos?
Literature, culture, and festivals, by extension, have historically provided a form of civic infrastructure where dissent can be spoken and visions for a more just world can be shaped. And so the festival presents, in this moment of democratic backsliding, elite capitulation, and retrogressive culture wars, a space to face these crises with honesty and imagination. Through panels, performances, and workshops, we’re convening voices that challenge censorship, resist cultural erasure, and articulate political and artistic possibilities that push against the narrowing of public life. We are creating a space for safeguarding the imaginative commons.
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