From September 18 to 20, 2026, the Kenya Cultural Centre in Nairobi hosts a quiet but far-reaching reckoning with the African continent’s history. The sixth edition of the Macondo Literary Festival unfolds under the theme « Ink, Sea, Silence, » an invitation to reopen files that colonization once forced shut. One figure captures the scale of the issue: according to organizers, between 90 and 95 percent of Africa’s cultural objects currently sit far from home, held in Western museums and storerooms. Rather than simply state the fact, the festival turns it into the raw material for three days of debate, readings, and performance.
Driven by the Macondo Book Society, co-founded by Anja Bengelstorff, alongside Kenyan novelist Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, the event has drawn partners from several continents, including LitLive Mumbai, the Turkana Basin Institute, and Cheche Books, a sign that the question of erased archives reaches well beyond Africa’s own borders. The opening day sets the tone with three masterclasses: one bluntly titled « Write to Destroy, » another devoted to the craft of protest writing, and a third exploring how to pass down history once the evidence has been scattered. Rounding out the program is a screening of Dahomey, Mati Diop’s film on the restitution of royal Beninese artifacts, plus an interdisciplinary performance called « Scribes on Silent Waves » that sits somewhere between literature and live art.
The guest list gives this Kenyan gathering the feel of a global literary summit. Canadian-Ghanaian novelist Esi Edugyan appears alongside Sudan’s Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin, Nigeria’s Emmanuel Iduma, Botswana’s Lauri Kubuitsile, and Egypt’s Yasmine El Rashidi, joined by voices from further afield such as India’s Meena Kandasamy and Brazil’s Itamar Vieira Junior. Kenya itself is well represented too: winners of Kiswahili literary prizes share the stage with local artists including Rebian, Adam Chienjo, and the musical collective Kevin Munyi & Friends, underscoring that Macondo is as invested in cross-continental dialogue as it is in showcasing its own home scene.
Admission remains free, a deliberate choice for a festival that treats inclusion as a founding principle. Eight sessions are interpreted into Kenyan Sign Language, four more are livestreamed, and the entire program runs across five languages. Behind that careful logistics lies an ambition that is easy to state and far harder to resolve: figuring out who gets to control Africa’s stories today, and how its writers can reclaim narratives that others have long told on their behalf.