The Grassling
In The Grassling, Burnett manages to write so elegantly and touchingly about nature, and what people can learn from it, that big issues suddenly feel more tangible.
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Anna von Rath
diversity trainer, translator and editor of poco.lit.
Afropolitanism as a dead-end road: Brian Chikwava
This essay is the third in a four-part series on Afropolitanism and literature. Brian Chikwava has not written a theoretical treatise on Afropolitanism. But his novel Harare North has been much discussed in the context of Afropolitanism.
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Gegen Morgen
At first glance, Deniz Utlu’s novel Gegen Morgen (Against Tomorrow) could be read as the story of a man in his mid-thirties going through a midlife crisis. Only at second glance does it become clear that it is about the fundamental questioning of value systems.
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Lost Children Archive
Valeria Luiselli teaches at Columbia University in New York, and works as a journalist in Mexico and the USA. She published her excellent novel Lost Children Archive in 2019. From the very first pages, I fell in love with the book: with Luiselli’s gentle narrative voice, and with the family’s soundscape, whom my reading allowed […]
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Palast der Miserablen
In early 2020, the German-Iraqi author Abbas Khider published his fifth novel, which is set in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime.
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Afropolitanism as ethico-political stance: Achille Mbembe
Alongside the writer Taiye Selasi, who was introduced in the first essay in this series, the political scientist Achille Mbembe is regarded as a key torchbearer of Afropolitanism. Mbembe presents Afropolitanism as an ethico-political stance.
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“Two Trees Make a Forest”: An interview with Jessica J. Lee
As part of the Green Library event series, poco. lit. spoke to Jessica J. Lee about her books, nature writing, home and belonging, colonialism in Taiwan, and the literary journal The Willowherb Review.
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The Old Drift
Namwali Serpell’s debut The Old Drift is a challenging, many-layered novel about relationships between states and people that change with the world around them.
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From poetry to permaculture: An interview with Linda Gabriel on empowering women
Zimbabwean poet and performer Linda Gabriel talks to Anna von Rath of poco. lit. about empowering women and children through permaculture and education with her non-profit organization Bontle Bahao.
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