ED2018 Preview Edition ED2018 Spoken Word ED2018 Three To See

Three To See 2018: Three book festival events

By | Published on Saturday 28 July 2018

ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Caro Moses helps you navigate the Festival with her Three To See tips. This time three recommended events at the Book Festival.

Chitra Nagarajan & Olumide Popoola | Charlotte Sq Gardens | 16 Aug
Yay, the Book Festival, and its lovely programme full of lovely events. I’ve only got space for three picks, as you will understand. So, as with the Art Festival, I’m begging you to get a programme for it or take a look at the festival’s website, because there are so many events, and so many cool people turning up for it, that I really can’t do it justice here. This is one event that I’ve got earmarked myself, featuring Chitra Nagarajan, editor of ‘She Called Me Woman’, a collection of stories about life in Africa as a queer woman, and Olumide Popoola, whose book ‘When We Speak Of Nothing’ promises to take us “on a journey of self-discovery from the racial tensions of London to the Niger Delta”. The pair discuss feminism and intersectionality in contemporary African communities and countries.

Akala – The Ruins Of Empire | Charlotte Sq Gardens | 24 Aug (pictured)
I’ve always been shocked by the ease with which so many of my fellow Britons seem to detach themselves from association with the nastiness of our colonial past, and who are so keen to pretend that racism isn’t a problem. Akala’s book – ‘Natives: Race And Class In The Ruins Of Empire’ – sounds like it counters all that, presenting a political analysis of racism and classism in the UK within a historical and contemporary context. It sounds very much like a book I want to read (after this festival is over, obv, no time before then) and therefore this is an event I would very much like to attend.

Matt Abbott & Joelle Taylor | Charlotte Sq Gardens | 17 Aug
This is an event from the Book Festival’s strand of spoken word stuff, and it features two really great acts. I’ll let them explain: “All the snarl and spit of spoken word in one explosive show. Joelle Taylor is an award-winning slam poet, playwright and spoken word artist. Her collection ‘Songs My Enemy Taught Me’, inspired by her workshops with vulnerable women, powerfully evokes their struggles. Matt Abbott, a poet and activist from Wakefield, returned to a teenage love for punk poetry after fronting indie band Skint & Demoralised. His current one-man show ‘Two Little Ducks’ earned him five star reviews”. Excellent.



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