This week, our editors report on the rebirth of theatre in Palestine, the best Swedish crime novels, and the Kenyan Readathon Challenge from September. From the Palestine National Theatre Festival to the Nairobi International Book Fair, read on to learn more!
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine
In Palestine, there is a generation of people who don’t really know what a theatre is! This might sound like an exaggeration, but sadly, that’s reality—or at least, that’s how it looks on the surface.
When the first Intifada broke out in late 1987, all theatres and cinemas were closed and most did not reopen or regain momentum until the late nineties. With simple arithmetic, we can see that the chances are low today of finding high-caliber theatre actors or actresses, let alone directors, aged in their thirties and forties.
With that in mind, I must admit I wasn’t too enthusiastic to attend the third Palestine National Theatre Festival running in the last week of October. Little did I know! All that was needed to get fully hooked was one play.
Not only was the week-long festival packed with plays and seminars, it also celebrated local works by tens of Palestinians, who proved to be masters of their trade. The festival also featured international names, but to my surprise, locally-written plays resonated deeper and more widely amongst the varied audience.
Not surprisingly, politics had the lion’s share on the stage. In fact, the inauguration ceremony was cancelled as a mark of respect to the martyrs who had fallen in the Israeli raid of Nablus the previous day, as well as to the suffering faced by those of the West Bank from the latest surge of Israeli atrocities against civilians.
Seeing is believing indeed, and it was literally shown on stage that theatre as a form of art—and plays as a form of literature—simply will not die just because a gap of twenty years was inflicted upon the industry. However, we must not live in illusion—a long journey still lies ahead. This applies to scripts as well as production. Nonetheless, emerging from ashes, even if deformed and burnt, there is still beauty. Credit is due to that generation that managed to master theatre even though they didn’t live it in their early and late youth. Chapeau!
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
Every year since 2016, the author and translator of a literary work translated into Swedish are awarded the Stockholm-based theatre Kulturhuset Stadsteatern’s International Literary Prize, worth a total of 150,000 SEK. In previous years, translations from Catalan, English, French, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Polish have received the award. This year, the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern Internationella Litteraturpris goes to the Canadian writer Miriam Toews and the Swedish translator Erik Andersson for the novel Women Talking (2019), published in Swedish as Kvinnor som pratar by Rámus förlag in 2022. According to the jury, the novel is just as humoristic as it is a serious chamber play.
The Swedish Academy of Crime Fiction will also soon announce the winners of The Best Swedish Crime Novel and The Martin Beck Award for the best crime novel in translation. The nominees in both categories were announced the other week. Swedish nominees include Malin Persson Giolito—internationally best known for Quicksand, which also appears in a Netflix adaptation—who already won this category in 2016, and John Ajvide Lindqvist, who is new to the crime fiction genre but one of Sweden’s most established horror fiction writers. Ajvide Lindqvist is most known for the novel Let the Right One In, with a 2008 Swedish film adaptation as well as a Hollywood remake from 2010 titled Let Me In. The book has also appeared in multiple stage adaptations and premiered this year on Showtime as a series. The Academy’s nominations for best translated crime novel include three British writers: Stuart Turton for The Devil and the Dark Water (in Åsa Brolin’s translation Djävulen och det mörka vattnet); Caz Frear for Sweet Little Lies (in Ylva Stålmarck’s translation Små vita lögner); and Chris Whitaker for We Begin at the End (in Maria Lundgren’s translation Slutet blir vår början). The other nominees include Finnish writer Elina Backman and translator Marjut Hökfelt, as well as Danish writers Sara Blaedel and Peder Nordbo, along with translator Jessica Hallén. The winners will be announced at the Academy’s autumn meeting on November 19-20.
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large for Kenya, reporting from Nairobi
Throughout September, Kenyans participating in the Kenyan Readathon Month were encouraged to read a variety of Kenyan literary works, which included works of translation into Kenyan languages and collections of carefully created challenges organized by genre, subject, and audience. This was a cause championed and hosted by Lexa Lubanga, a literary enthusiast cum activist, Booktuber, and woman of letters. The readathon ushered in Nairobi’s personal festival of festivals, as the Macondo Literary Festival and the city’s book fair came to cap off the month.
The widely successful 3-day Macondo Literary Festival was hosted by The Kenya National Theatre from September 30th to October 2nd of this year. This edition—themed the “Future of Memories”—was headlined by Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, and featured writing workshops conducted by various artists including, among others, Nadifa Mohamed, Patrice Nganang, and Mia Couto. The festival was organised by the 2003 Caine Prize winner Yvonne Owuor together with other partners. This edition was such a huge treat, as it brought together writers from different literary traditions: Brazilian, Lusophone, Anglophone, and Afrophone African writers, all at the Macondo Literary Festival.
Nairobi, the city under the sun, hosted the Nairobi International Book Fair from the 28th of September to the 2nd of October. Themed “Publishing in the New Era,” the fair was organised by the Kenya Publishers Association, and in its 23rd year, provided not only a regional marketplace for books, but also a rare gathering of all the literary ecosystem stakeholders in the area. True to our post-pandemic reality, this year’s edition featured a hybrid format, with online sessions running alongside the physical event in its traditional Sarit Centre Expo Hall in Westlands, Nairobi.
*****
Read more from the Asymptote blog: