LitHouse podcast

The Arab Spring is when Egyptian Youssef Rakha first starts writing novels. Moroccan Soukaina Habiballah publishes her first poetry collection shortly after, while French Moroccan Leïla Slimani works as a journalist at the time, reporting on the protests unfolding throughout Northern Africa and the Maghreb, before turning to fiction.How have these experiences shaped their writing? All three writers explore the quest for freedom, whether on a personal or a collective level. Can we talk about a post-Arab Spring literature, or is that merely a handy label for the West?«Just like Arab Muslim lives, Arab Muslim writing is not worth the civilized world’s attention,» Rakha wrote in an essay in Guernica last year.Soukaina Habiballah is the award-winning author of four poetry collections, a short story collection, a novel and a play, Nini Ya Momo.Youssef Rakha was selected among the Hay Festival’s best Arabic writers under 40 in 2009. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels and poetry, most recently the novel The Dissenters.Leïla Slimani is one of the most prominent literary voices in Frankophone literature today. She won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016 for her novel Lullaby, and has excited critics with her trilogy of a French-Moroccan family saga.Habiballah, Rakha and Slimani was joined by journalist and critic Helene Hovden Hareide for a conversation about freedom and revolutions, about the power of literature for readers, authors and for moving the world forward.

Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2021, as the first African-born writer in almost 20 years, for having, in the jury’s reasong, «highlighted the impact of colonialism and the fate of refugees». Now, in his first new novel following the prize, he has turned his focus closer to our own time. The novel has been titled Theft. But what is stolen, and who is the thief?In a postcolonial East Africa in the early 1990s, marked by global change, we meet the oy Badar. He is sent away from his foster parents in Zanzibar to serve a rich family on the mainland, in Dar es Salaam. He feels inferior and ignorant, but is soon embraced by the son of the house, Karim. When Badar is later accused of stealing from his employer, he gets to move in with Karim and his fiancée, Fauzia.In a finely tuned and precise language, Gurnah portrays the deeply human experiences of the three young people, through trials and tribulations as they grow up, and he explores human relations with characteristic empathy and eye for alienation.Abdulrazak Gurnah is professor of postcolonial literature, and the author of eleven novels, among them the critically acclaimed Paradise and Afterlives. Gurnah is a master of allusion, and in an understated language, he creates recognizable, flawed characters, always with a keen eye for those feeling like outsiders.One who has followed Gurnah’s writing for years, and also been mentored by him herself, is author and historian Nadifa Mohamed. She joined Gurnah for a conversation about theft and trust, betrayal and belonging.The conversation took place the University of Oslo’s Ceremonial Hall.The event is supported by NORAD.

French Moroccan Leïla Slimani‘s own family was the inspiration when she started her critically acclaimed trilogy: The Country of Others, Watch Us Dance and this year’s publication, J'emporterai le feu (“I will carry the fire”).We follow the Belhaj family through three generations, from when Mathilde leaves France to follow her new husband Amine to his home country Morocco after the second world war, and their struggle to find their place between two cultures that are rather hostile to each other, to their daughter, Aïcha through her childhood in Morocco and studies in France, before the last book takes the story up to our time through Aïcha’s daughter Mia.This epic family saga contains love stories and sex, violence and racism, while the family’s path is continually affected by the historical currents of Morocco and the wider world. French Mathilde grapple with the strict role for women in the Moroccan countryside, while her daughter Aïcha feels ogled and set apart as a Moroccan in France. In a vibrant and immediate language, Slimani portrays the various family members’ struggles to belong, and to create a home and a family.Leïla Slimani is one of the most central Francophone authors today. Her definitive breakthrough came with the award-winning thriller Lullaby, for which she was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and non fiction titles.Slimani was joined by associate professor of French literature, Kjerstin Aukrust, for a conversation about home, belonging and a family history.

With her deep and fearless portrayals of German and European history, Jenny Erpenbeck is a unique voice in world literature. Her authorship is widely considered to be among the most important of our time, leaving critics to discuss when, and not if she receives the Nobel prize for literature. This year, her latest novel Kairos was awarded the International Booker prize. In Kairos, we follow an increasingly dysfunctional couple, mirroring the dying nation state of the DDR, where the novel is set. It is a novel about love and passion, but equally about the relationship between power and the arts.In her writing, Erpenbeck combines an acute awareness of history with succinct prose and a daring sense of form and composition. Through short stories, essays, plays and a host of critically acclaimed novels, she explores themes such as identity and memory and shows us the human costs of totalitarian regimes. How does the past continue to shape our present and future?Now, Erpenbeck is joined by author and editor Mattis Øybø at the House of Literature for a conversation on a dark and burning European history.

«The security guard adores babies. Perhaps because babies do not shoplift.Babies adore the security guard. Perhaps because he does not drag babies to the sales.»In a Sephora-store on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a security guard is watching the shoppers. In the early 70’s, Ferdinand arrives in Paris to start his new life and needs to learn the ropes. In the 90’s, friends Ossiri and Kassoum work nights in the Parisian underground.Three generations of immigrants tell their stories in Standing Heavy, the sensational debut novel from author Armand Patrick Gbaka-Bredé, better known as GauZ’. With playful language, an eventful plot, and tons of observational humour, Standing Heavy is a devilish comedy about France’s colonial heritage seen through the eyes of the service class.GauZ’ is a French-Ivorian author, editor and publisher based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The novel Debout-Payé was lauded by critics when it was released in 2014, and in 2023 the English translation was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.At the House of Literature, GauZ’ meets author and journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam for a conversation on class, capitalism and the security guard.

«Water remembers. It is humans who forget.»A droplet of water finds its way from ancient Mesopotamia to a street urchin in 1840’s London and on to a Yazidi family in present day Iraq. Three people’s lives and destinies are connected by two rivers – the Thames and the Tigris – and the water which flows through them.In the novel There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak weaves together lost empires, colonial plunder, modern conflicts, and the study of water in a plot stretching from ancient time to the present. With thrill, humour and evocative language, There Are Rivers in the Sky is both enthralling and fascinating, and has been lauded by authors such as Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Mary Beard.Turkish-British Elif Shafak is one of the world’s foremost writers of historical fiction. Through her fourteen novels, she has explored cultural tensions and socioeconomic inequalities between East and West in historical and contemporary settings. She has also been an active champion of the freedom of speech and of human rights, particularly women’s rights, an activism evident in both her fiction and non-fiction. She lives in London in self-imposed exile, after past and continuing threats in Turkey against her work as an author.At the House of Literature, Shafak meets author and journalist Marte Spurkland for a conversation on time, cultural conflicts, and the memory of water.

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan British writer, known for her debut novel Kintu, as well as the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman. She has been awarded the Coomonwealth Short Story Prize and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and also been named one of the 100 most influental Africans by New African magazine.This is Makumbi’s reading list:Brit Bennett, The Vanishing HalfYvonne Battle-Felton, Curdle CreekChinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart                           Arrow of GoodNgugi wa Thiong’oWole SoyinkaNamwali Serpell, The Old Drift                            The FurrowsAyọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Stay With MeAyesha Haruna Attah, The Hundred Wells of SalagaLeila Aboulela, Lyrics Alley                        River Spirit

From intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois to activist Malcolm X, from heads of state Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi to poet Aimé Césaire and artist Bob Marley – they have all played a role in the history of panafricanism.Panafricanism is a political, intellectual and cultural movement that was first formed around the turn of the last century among Africans in the diaspora, in the UK, the US and the West Indies. They fought for a shared, Black identity, for decolonization of the African continent, and for the Black diaspora to return to Africa to strengthen the continent – with some even calling for a United States of Africa.What role has panafricanism played in the fight for independence in different African countries, and in the creation of Black art, culture and identity? And what is the significance of the new wave of panafricanism today?Hakim Adi is an award-winning professor of history and writer, and the first historian with African roots to become a professor of history in the UK. In this lecture, he will provide a broad introduction to the history of panafricanism.The event was part of Black History Month Norway.