Readings (archive)
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2016
An Evening to Celebrate Black and Asian British Writing
Venue: Lecture theatre Jo1, Johannisstr. 4, Münster
Thursday 29 September 2016 from 7pm
Join us at this special event with readings from renowned authors, showcasing literature from the UK’s Black and Asian writers, who have been a part of the country’s arts scene for generations.
Featuring award-winning poet Moniza Alvi, crime writer and activist, Mike Phillips, acclaimed novelist Kerry Young and poet, playwright, and novelist Gabriel Gbadamosi, the reading will be chaired by Susheila Nasta, Founding Editor of Wasafiri, the well-known magazine of international contemporary writing that has championed Black and Asian writing since its inception in 1984.
A discussion follows the readings covering topics such as the politics of publishing, prize culture, as well as the challenges facing writers after Brexit; it will be chaired by Mark Stein, Chair of Postcolonial Studies, University of Münster, and Susheila Nasta.
This event is hosted by the English Department of the University of Münster and has been organised in partnership with Wasafiri: The Magazine of International Contemporary Writing. All are welcome.
The first of a series of lively events planned to parallel the compilation of the first Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing, its Editors, Professor Susheila Nasta (Open University) and Professor Mark Stein (University of Münster) are committed to profiling new writing and encouraging lively interaction between creative practitioners and critics. Drawing on pioneering research from over 40 international scholars, some of whom will be in attendance at this special Munster event, the book will be published in 2018.
Authors will be available to sign books after the event. Copies of Wasafiri will be on sale at a discount.
| Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. Her first collection The Country at My Shoulder (Oxford University Press, 1993) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread poetry prizes and selected for the Poetry Society’s ‘New Generation Poets’ promotion. Her later collections have all been published by Bloodaxe Books and include Europa (2008) and At the Time of Partition (2013) both Poetry Book Society Choices and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Moniza received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002. |
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Writer Mike Phillips was born in Georgetown, Guyana. He came to Britain as a child and grew up in London. He was educated at the University of London (English), the University of Essex (politics), and at Goldsmiths College London (education). He has written full-time since 1992. He is best known for his crime fiction, including four novels featuring black journalist Sam Dean: Blood Rights (1989), which was adapted for BBC television, The Late Candidate (1990), winner of the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award, Point of Darkness (1994) and An Image to Die For (1995). Subsequent novels are The Dancing Face (1998), A Shadow of Myself (2000) and The Name You Once Gave Me (2006). Non fiction works are Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998), and London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001). Recently he has written 2 operas with orchestra leader Julian Joseph, and is currently in the process of writing the libretto for a new work reinterpreting Tristan and Isolde, trialled at the ROH in 2013 and to be launched on BBC TV in 2018. He is also working on the script of a film – The Expendable Man, in production with EON Productions. |
| Gabriel Gbadamosi is a poet, playwright and essayist. His London novel Vauxhall (2013) won the Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow in European and African performance at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at City & Guilds of London Art School. His plays include Eshu’s Faust (Jesus College Cambridge), Shango (DNA, Amsterdam), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin) and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the first Richard Imison Award. He is a director of Wasafiri literary magazine and a trustee of the Arcola Theatre, London. |  |
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Kerry Young was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Chinese father and mother of mixed Chinese-African heritage. She came to England in 1965. Kerry has a history of non-fiction writing and editing on issues relating to youth work. She also has Master’s Degrees in organization development and creative writing, and a PhD. Kerry Young is the author of three novels: Pao (Bloomsbury, 2011) shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize and the East Midlands Book Award; Gloria (Bloomsbury, 2013) longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and nominated for the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Show Me A Mountain recently published by Bloomsbury in June 2016. Kerry is a Reader and Mentor for The Literary Consultancy and a tutor for the Arvon Foundation. She is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, Honorary Assistant Professor in the School of English at The University of Nottingham, and Honorary Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Leicester. |
A reading by Nuruddin Farah
Friday, June 10th, 8pm
Stadtbücherei Münster | 8€, red. 4€
Acclaimed Somalian author Nuruddin Farah, recipient of the Kurt Tucholsky Prize and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature as well as perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, will read from his latest novel Hiding in Plain Sight (2015).
Chair: Prof. Dr. Mark Stein
Reading of the German translation : Carsten Bender
Tickets can be bought in advance at
Rosta Buchladen, Aegidiistr. 12 in Münster
>> Literature at Lunchtime <<
A reading by Tendai Huchu
chaired by Deborah Nyangulu
Wednesday, 20 April, 12-2 pm (ES 131)
Tendai Huchu is a Zimbabwean author who lives in Edinburgh. His first novel, The Hairdresser of Harare, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim, and has been translated into German, French, Italian and Spanish. His short fiction in multiple genres and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gutter, Interzone, AfroSF, Wasafiri, Warscapes, The Africa Report and elsewhere. In 2013, he received a Hawthornden Fellowship, a Sacatar Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize.
Tendai Huchu will be reading from his new novel, The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician. It pictures the struggle of three main characters with thoughts of belonging, loss, identity and love, as they attempt to find a place for themselves in Britain.
The reading will be chaired by Deborah Nyangulu, who is a graduate of the MA NTS programme and a PhD student and lecturer at the Chair of English, Postcolonial, and Media Studies, WWU Münster <ptts.wwu.de>.
The poster can be viewed and downloaded here.
Englisches Seminar | Room ES 131 | Johannisstraße 12-20 | 48143 Münster
2015
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Guest lecture: Tues. May 12, 10-12 am (c.t.) | AudiMax | Johannisstraße 12-20 | 48143 Münster
As part of the lecture series “Literatures of the African and South Asian Diasporas” (Prof. Dr. Mark Stein)
Reading: Tues. May 12, 7 pm (s.t.) | Jo 1 | Johannisstraße 4 | 48143 Münster
Tickets: 8,00 € / 4,00 € reduced (available at ROSTA bookshop, Aegidiistraße 12, or at the door)
Chair and discussion Mark Stein (WWU).
Passages in German read by Andreas Ladwig.
A cooperation between Afrikakooperative e.V. (http://afrika-kooperative.
Download flyer here.
2013
Grace Nichols and John Agard perform their poetry
17 June 2013, 12-14h | JO1, Johannisstraße 4
Last month, Caribbean poet Derek Walcott and his translator received Münster’s “Preis für Internationale Poesie”. In June, two distinguished Caribbean poets were in town to read and perform 
their work. Born in Guyana and resident in the UK since 1977, Grace Nichols is known for her various collections of poetry, such as i is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984) and, more recently, Startling the Flying Fish (2006) and Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009). In her work, she has engaged with the Caribbean cultural heritage and her own transnational and transcultural identity as a Caribbean woman writer in Britain. The work of her partner, John Agard, is also informed by his transnational life. Since the 1970s, Agard has published poetry (e.g. Half-Caste, 2005 and We Brits, 2006), as well as short stories, drama and several children’s books.
Many Caribbean writers and artists practice in diaspora and are located outside the Caribbean, especially in the UK, Canada, and the USA. In Britain, this group intersects with the South Asian diaspora. Their poetry has recently been anthologized in Out of Bounds: British Black & Asian Poets. In Münster, Agard and Nichols have been accompanied by the anthology’s co-editor Dr. James Procter who discussed the politics of anthologizing.
The reading took place at Johannisstraße 4, in lecture theatre JO1 on Monday, June 17th, at 12:15. It has been sponsored by the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media studies, WWU Münster, Bloodaxe publishers, the University of Newcastle and the British Council Germany.
Further information:
Biography, bibliography and critical perspective on Grace Nichols and John Agard (by the British Council)
Publisher's information on Out of Bounds
Download: Flyer
"Shop talk": Werkstattgespräch Der weiße Reiher
Werner von Koppenfels, Jürgen Balmes and Mark Stein discuss the translations of Derek Walcott's White Egret and Omeros.
Theater Münster, Kleines Haus
Saturday, 25th May 2013, 16.30h
Download: Press release
2012
Lawrence Norfolk reads from his new novel John Saturnall's Feast
23 November 2012, 8 p.m. | Haus der Niederlande (Krameramtshaus), Alter Steinweg 6-7
On Friday, 23 Nov. 2012, Lawrence Norfolk reads from his new novel John Saturnall's Feast . The reading will take place in "Haus der Niederlande" (Krameramtshaus), Alter Steinweg 6-7, at 8 p.m.
The reading is a co-operation between Literaturverein Münster, the English Seminar, and Albrecht Knaus Verlag.
Further Information: Johns Saturnall's Feast on YouTube | Author's homepage | PDF Announcement
A Literary Matinée with Isidore Diala and Gregor Addison
05 April 2012, 13-15h | Gallery of the University Library (ULB), Krummer Timpen 3, Münster
The English Department of Münster University would like to announce a public reading with two amazing authors. Professor and writer Isidore Diala (Owerri, Nigeria) will read from his award-winning poetry collection Lure of Ash (1998), and Gregor Addison (Glasgow, Scotland) will read from his recent novel Pure Wool (2012), a modern fable that tells a story about mistrust, conflict, and hope.
2011
Dieter Riemenschneider reads from his anthology
"Wildes Licht. Gedichte aus Aotearoa/Neuseeland":
Thur., 3 Feb. 2011
7.30pm
Admission free.
Further information
Worldwide reading against Robert Mugabe - English/Deutsch
If you wish to partake in the world-wide reading against the regime of Robert Mugabe, please contact:
worldwidereading@literaturfestival.com
For further information please visit:
http://www.literaturfestival.com/
2007
Poetry performance & guest lecture/ presentation:
Baba Brinkman (Canadian Hip Hop artist, actor, and medieval scholar)
"The Rap Canterbury Tales - Hip-hop Versions of Chaucer's 14th Century Classic"
Performance 21 May 2007
Lecture/ presentation 22 May 2007