Berlin's African Book Festival Returns: A Queer Voices Edition
A literary celebration highlights LGBTQI+ African authors in July’s “In Other Wor(l)ds” festival
July 04th, 2025
The African Book Festival is set to return to Berlin from July 18 to 20, 2025, with a bold thematic shift that will place African speculative fiction and queer voices at the center of its programming. Hosted at the Alte Münze cultural venue in central Berlin and organized by InterKontinental e.V., this year’s edition is titled “In Other Wor(l)ds” and aims to reimagine African literary futures through the lens of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and alternate realities.
While previous iterations of the festival have welcomed acclaimed authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Ben Okri, the 2025 edition continues the trajectory started in 2024, when the festival introduced a Queer Edition that centered LGBTQI+ African authors. That landmark edition expanded both the audience and scope of the festival, creating space for voices often marginalized in mainstream African literary discourse.
This year’s program will feature over 20 authors and cultural figures from across Africa and the diaspora, including Ghanaian-American speculative writer Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, South African novelist Niq Mhlongo, and Senegalese-German author Ayesha Harruna Attah. Their works, ranging from near-future thrillers to feminist mythmaking, explore the intersections of identity, politics, and imagination.
Throughout the three-day festival, audiences can expect panel discussions, live readings, publishing roundtables, and film screenings. Several workshops will address the realities and challenges of queer storytelling in African contexts, from censorship and exile to linguistic innovation and audience reception.
One of the festival’s highlights will be the Book Club Special, which will link African literary communities abroad with Berlin-based readers. The outdoor market space will again offer food, crafts, and books by African and Afro-diasporic publishers, adding a sensory, communal dimension to the otherwise cerebral atmosphere.
According to its official website (africanbookfestival.de) and city listings on Berlin.de, the 2025 festival continues InterKontinental’s mission to amplify African literary voices in the German capital. What makes this edition especially resonant is its dual commitment to queerness and futurity, two themes often silenced or ignored in dominant narratives about Africa.
In a city like Berlin, known for its cultural experimentation and queer-friendliness, the African Book Festival’s turn toward speculative queer fiction is both timely and transformative. It affirms literature not only as a mirror of society, but as a tool to invent new worlds—ones where gender, race, language, and geography are no longer limitations, but invitations to imagine differently.
References:
- https://africanbookfestival.de/2024-2/
- https://www.berlin.de/en/events/6752701-2842498-african-book-festival.en.html
