Tottenham Literature Festival | EVENING TALKS
14, 15, 18 November, 2022
EVENING TALKS PROGRAMME: 14, 15 & 18 NOVEMBER
Celebrate Black literature in these special evening talks and performances during the week, ranging from authors you love and those you’re about to discover.
Evening Talk: More Fiya
Monday 14 November | 19:00 – 20:30 | BGAC Theatre
Tickets from £8 (Pay What You Can)
Join #TLF22 with ignited poetry performances celebrating More Fiya anthology of Black British poets edited by Kayo Chingonyi featuring Anthony Joseph, Bridget Minamore, Dean Atta, Dzifa Benson, Momtaza Mehri and others. In partnership with Canongate. BSL interpreted.
About More Fiya: A New Collection of Black British Poetry:
In this blistering anthology, poet, editor and DJ Kayo Chingonyi brings together a selection of exceptional Black British poets. This is his dream mixtape featuring a cross-generational span of current poets extending and inhabiting the spirits of the ancestors. Following in the tread of Lemn Sissay’s The Fire People, More Fiya aims to lodge in the mind of its readers for a lifetime, radiating to touch the lives of many.
Book your tickets here.
Evening Talk: 1000 Coils of Fear
Tuesday 15 November | 19:00 – 20:00 | BGAC The Hub
Tickets from £8 (Pay What You Can)
‘I have more privilege than any person in my family. And I’m still screwed.’ Hear from acclaimed Afro-German author Olivia Wenzel as she discusses her award-winning novel, 1000 Coils of Fear. Described as ‘exuberant, inventive, brainy, sensitive and hilarious,’ 1000 Coils of Fear is now translated from German to English. In partnership with Dialogue Books and supported by Goethe Institut.
About 1000 Coils of Fear:
A young woman attends a play about the Berlin Wall coming down, and is the only Black person in the audience. She is sitting with her boyfriend by a bathing lake, and four neo-Nazis show up. She is having sex with a stranger in New York, and Donald Trump wins the US presidential election. Engaging in a witty question and answer with herself, she takes stock of our rapidly changing times, sometimes angry, sometimes amused, sometimes afraid, and always passionate. And she tells the story of her family: Her mother, a punk in former East Germany who never had the freedom she dreamed of. Her Angolan father, who returned to his home country before she was born to start a second family. Her grandmother, whose life of obedience to party principles brought her prosperity and security but not happiness. And her twin brother, who took his own life at the age of nineteen.
Book your tickets here.
Evening Talk: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
Friday 18 November | 19:00 – 20:30 | BGAC Theatre
Tickets from £8 (Pay What You Can)
Award winning British actor and author, Paterson Joseph, performs an extract from his incredible show SANCHO, and reads from his new book The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, about Ignatius Sancho, a descendant of enslaved parents who became the first Black Briton registered to vote in the 1700s. Followed by an in conversation and Q&A with Paterson Joseph. BSL interpreted.
About The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho:
It’s 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man, especially one who has escaped slavery. After the twinkling lights in the Fleet Street coffee shops are blown out and the great houses have closed their doors for the night, Sancho is utterly alone. The man he hoped would help is dying. Sancho is desperate.
And yet this same Sancho will go on to tread the boards of London’s theatres, become a highly acclaimed musician and composer, lead the fight to end slavery, meet the King and become the very first Black person to vote in Britain…
It’s time for him to tell his story, one that begins on a tempestuous Atlantic Ocean, and ends at the very centre of London life. And through it all, he must ask: born amongst death, how much can you achieve in one short life?
Book your tickets here.