New York Black and African Literature Festival

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A literary festival in the heart of New York connecting the global black diaspora.

11/03/2026

On Sunday afternoons in West Harlem, the living room of Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets ran on a few simple laws: the cornbread, the greens, and the obligation to bring a poem, a plate, or a song to share.

At the opening of NYBALF 2026, Camonghne Felix read from Let the Poets Govern about the house that taught her what earnest community could be, a place where no one had to ask whose life was worthy.

Watch the full reading on our YouTube channel. Link in bio.

11/02/2026

“Rebellion was and is my liberation.” Camonghne Felix reads from Let the Poets Govern, tracing the tension between education, institutions, alienation and the parts of the self that refuse to be contained by them.

From opening night at NYBALF 2026.

Camonghne Felix
Harlem Stage

10/27/2026

Colonial rule in Africa was built on a distinction between natives and migrants. The British, the French and the Portuguese brought migrants in from outside and placed them in the most sensitive positions, in the army, in labour, inside the state, and then wrote that distinction into the political structure, privileging migrants at the expense of natives. When independence came, Mahmood Mamdani argues, the structure survived the handover, the same world, just turned upside down, with different people on top and different people at the bottom. Every African country since has had to settle the same question of who belongs and in what order.

From "Slow Poison," Mahmood Mamdani in conversation with Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún at NYBALF 2026, presented by Harlem Stage. Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni and the Making of the Ugandan State is out now.

10/26/2026

Colonial rule in Africa was built on a distinction between natives and migrants. The British, the French and the Portuguese brought migrants in from outside and placed them in the most sensitive positions, in the army, in labour, inside the state, and then wrote that distinction into the political structure, privileging migrants at the expense of natives. When independence came, Mahmood Mamdani argues, the structure survived the handover, the same world, turned upside down, with different people on top and different people at the bottom. Every African country since has had to settle the same question of who belongs and in what order.

From "Slow Poison," Mahmood Mamdani in conversation with Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún at NYBALF 2026.
Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni and the Making of the Ugandan State is out now.

10/25/2026

In May 1803, a group of enslaved Igbo people leapt from a ship into a creek on the Georgia coast. The slave agent's record says they drowned, but the accounts passed down among the enslaved and their descendants say they flew, or walked across the water, all the way back to Africa, singing as they went.

Namwali Serpell traces those lyrics into Song of Solomon, where Morrison lets the story arrive obliquely, through a song someone overhears.

From "Toni Morrison and the Black World," the opening keynote of NYBALF 2026, presented by Harlem Stage. Full keynote now available on YouTube. Link in bio.

AfricanLiterature

10/23/2026

Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison were born three months apart in 1931. They read each other. Morrison said Achebe's work liberated her artistic intelligence as nothing else had; asked which book he would take to a desert island, Achebe said Beloved.

In her keynote at NYBALF 2026, Namwali Serpell traces that kinship between two writers on either side of the Atlantic, holding the same question of what happened to us, on the continent and in the diaspora.

From Toni Morrison and the Black World, Harlem Stage, September 2026.

AfricanLiterature

10/04/2026

Three days in Harlem with writers, poets, scholars, filmmakers, teachers, readers and artists from across the Black world, with conversations on literature, memory, migration, language, citizenship, food, family, place and what it means to gather around books and ideas.

Thank you to every guest who joined us, every audience member who came through, and every partner, volunteer and team member who helped make the weekend possible.

09/22/2026

It means everything indeed! Day 2 reflections from

Address

9707 63rd Road Rego Park
New York, NY
11374

Telephone

+19286078518

Website

http://www.blackandafricanlitfestny.com/

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