African Wars

May 3, 2008 | The French Institute Alliance Française | New York City

With Nuruddin Farah, Chenjerai Hove, and Abdourahman Waberi; moderated by Violaine Huisman

Cosponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française

The French Institute Alliance Française is proud to present a conversation among three of today’s most internationally acclaimed African writers as part of its World Nomads series. Somali Nuruddin Farah, whom The New York Review of Books has hailed as “one of the most sophisticated voices in modern fiction,” is the author of the novel trilogies Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship and Blood in the Sun. Chenjerai Hove of Zimbabwe, a fierce critic of the Mugabe government, is a poet, novelist, and essayist whose works include Ancestors and Guardians of the Soil. Abdourahman Waberi of Djibouti, a political novelist and Farah disciple, is the author of Harvest of Skulls, a fictional revisitation of the Rwandan genocide. All three writers have been forced into exile for their activism, and all have turned the tongue of their former oppressors into pacifistic weapons. Their practice of literature, defined by an undercurrent of political misery, transcends national borders.

 LISTEN 
• Entire event (1:26)

PHOTO GALLERY
• View the photo gallery on Flickr