LitHouse podcast

A young girl from a poor family fighting to get the education she wants, but which is primarily reserved for her brother. A beautiful and worldly friend who brings her out of her shell. The history of a region told through the childhood of a young girl.

This could be the description of Elena Ferrante’s Naples Quartet, but in fact it describes the trilogy of Tsitsi Dangarembga, began several decades earlier.

In this trilogy, we follow the young girl Tambudzai from her childhood in colonised Rhodesia, throughadolescence during the liberation war to the young woman attempting to carve out a life for herself in an independent, but disillusioned, Zimbabwe.

How are these novels read today? And why is it that many of the most central authors from the African continent are still unfamiliar to many European readers?

Dangarembga has made her mark as a writer for more than 30 years. In 2021, she was the eighth writer to be included in the art project The Future Library in Oslo, and this Spring, she was awarded the Freedom of Expression Prize from the Norwegian Writers Union. Her novels have become modern classics, and a number of writers have been inspired by her nuanced portraits of a young girl, by how she renders girls’ and women’s fight for equal rights and how she tells the recent story of Zimbabwe through her fiction.

One of the writers inspired by Dangarembga’s fiction, is Ethiopian Maaza Mengiste. She has also employed the novel to tell the story of a country in her books Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and The Shadow King.

Marjam Idriss is the author of the novel Jannikeevangeliet («The Gospel of Jannike»), a literary critic and a translator of names such as Audre Lorde and Amanda Gorman. This Spring, she has delved into Dangarembga’s body of work.

Tonje Vold is a professor at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo. She wrote her thesis about Tsitsi Dangarembga, and her research has focused especially on postcolonial literature and literature from Southern Africa.

Moderating the conversation is writer and former artistic director at the House of Literature, Andreas Liebe Delsett.

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Jamaica Kincaid is one of the greatest authors of feminist and postcolonial literature of our time. In her handful of novels and a collection of short stories, she has portrayed themes such as structural racism, otherness and mother-daughter relationships with soberness and astonishing clarity. She has emerged as a favourite among readers and critics alike, and is increasingly mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In Lucy, a young woman travels from a Caribbean island to an American metropolis to work as an au pair for a wealthy family. Her new home offers culture shocks in the form of the new climate and city life, but also in the form of visible class differences and racism. Trapped in hierarchy and gender norms, Lucy feels isolated and alone, and must figure out how yet to grow as a person and live a meaningful life.

Speaking with Kincaid is journalist and feminist bookshop founderIda Pallin Bostadløkken. She has devoured Kincaid’s works with eagerness and joy, and March 15, 2023, the two met on our stage for a conversation about Lucy, identity and belonging.

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“How will you show the destroyed city?”

The Trofymchuks live in a small city in Donbas’ “Red Zone”, Ukraine, which since Russia’s invasion in 2014 has seen frequent shellings and the breakdown of infratructure. They plan to make a film showing their new daily life, and at the dinner table discuss how best to capture the destruction, uncertainty and despair that the war has brought. Just as important is the question of how to show the joys, resilience and community in their neighbourhood and in the family, even in the most dire of circumstances. What is the power of art in a world filled with horrors and absurdities?

In the documentaryThe Earth is Blue as an Orange(2020), filmmakerIryna Tsilykfollows the Trofymchuks through one year of living on the frontline of the war, documenting their wish to tell the story of their city. This way, she also portrays the many thousands of families in Ukraine trying to keep hold of the brighter spots in an otherwise dark time.

Iryna Tsilyk is a Ukrainian critically acclaimed filmmaker, author, poet and translator. In over 15 years she has been writing and producing films about the effects of war on civilians, among other things, especially on women and families.The Earth is Blue as an Orangehas won a host of awards for its direction and cinematography, which manages to bring the viewer close to the heart of this extraordinarily resilient family.

In conversation with Tsilyk is authorÅsne Seierstad. She has written an array of documentary books that show the effects of war and conflict, by getting close to affected individuals, most recently in the critically acclaimedThe Afghans. She meets Tsilyk for a conversation on family, Ukraine and the role of art in wartime.

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As a little girl, Lea Ypi regarded Stalin and Albania’s leader Enver Hoxha as dependable father figures, she liked how her teacher Nora har simple answers to everything, and what she wanted most of all, was to be named a pioneer. But when the communist regime falls in 1991, the young Lea suddenly realizes that nothing is truly like she thought. Has her whole life been a lie?

In her memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Ypi depicts an unusual childhood: Before she came of age, she had lived trough a communist regime and its fall, the neoliberal society that succeeded it, as well as a ghastly civil war. With acute awareness, attention to detail and no small amount of wit, Ypi offers her reader a unique insight into Albania’s recent history and contention between ideologies and political and economic interests.

With her childhood in Albania, Lea Ypi is today a professor of political theory at London School of Economics, where she, among other things, teaches Marxism. Her memoir Free was awarded the Ondaatje prize and named one of the best books of 2022 by both The New Yorker and Fincancial Times.

At the House of Literature, Ypi will be joined in conversation by Marianne Marthinsen. Marthinsen is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her background is from Norway’s Worker’s Youth League and the Labour Party, which she represented in parliament between 2005 and 2021. Today, she works for Finance Norway.

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The world in which we live is by and large designed and built for “the ideal man”: The size of cell phones, seat belts in cars, the development of medication – there are countless examples. And most of this we take for granted, that is how used we are, both women and men, to men being the norm, the universal form.

If something is to change in the world that is constantly overlooking women, we have to first be aware that this is happening, says writerCaroline Criado Perez. In her bookInvisible Women, she lets the numbers speak for her: Data and statistics from all areas of society and a number of countries all show the same picture. “When we see it, we see it. But someone has to point it out to us,”Linn Stalsbergwrites in an essay about invisible women in Agenda Magasin. And Criado Perez points it out to us. Where do we go from here? What would change in design and politics if the world started including the experiences of women?

Criado Perez is a critically acclaimed writer, journalist, and activist from the UK, where she has campaigned for women to be featured on British banknotes, and for statues of suffragettes to be erected.

Linn Stalsberg is a journalist and writer of titles such asDet er nok nå(“Enough now”) andEtter pandemien(“After the pandemic”).

This evening, Criado Perez will give an introduction to her project to reveal the male norm governing our everyday lives, before joining Stalsberg in conversation.

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It is a rare occation when the author of cult books such as American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction releases his first novel in 13 years. For readers of Bret Easton Ellis’s earlier books, The Shards has a familiar atmosphere, and he doesn’t shy away from explicit descriptions of sex or violence.

We are in early 80s LA, and the main character, Bret Ellis, is 17 and a senior at the prestigious private school Buckley. A charming new student in class challenges Bret’s attempt to hide his attraction to men.

But something darks lurks beneath the glossy surface. The story is told by a now middle aged Bret revisiting the fatal senior year when a serial killer appeared in LA. Leafing through his old yearbook, he notices the five classmates that are missing.

Ellis likes to provoke, both in fiction and in public debate. The Shards is no exception. First published in serial format on Ellis’s own podcast, the story is passed off as a memoir based on Ellis’s own experiences, much like the earlier Lunar Park. As the serial killer moves ever closer to Bret’s circle, the book also describes Bret’s sexual and literary awakening, making it as much a story of the author’s journey into writing.

When Ellis visits the House of Literature for the first time, he is joined on stage by Emma Clare Gabrielsen. She has worked for many years as a journalist in Natt & Dag, DN and Norwegian broadcasting NRK, where her documentary on pedophiles earned her nominations for both Norway's premier journalist prize and Prix Europe's "European Journalist of the Year".

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The young girl Hirut starts working for a wealthy couple, but is soon brought into their many quarrels, their jealousy and grief over the loss of a child. This is Ethiopia in the 1930s. Things go from bad to worse when Italy, led by Mussolini, invades the country, and Hirut’s master is tasked with organizing an opposition army. His wife refuses to wait at home for him, and creates her own force, made up by women. In the capital, emperor Selassie attempts to shut out the dire situation through the sound of opera.

In her novelThe Shadow King,Maaza Mengistetakes as her starting point a central chapter in the history of Ethiopia , as well as her own family history. She invites us into the realities of the servant Hirut and her madame, but also that of the army leader Kidane, the Italian soldier Ettore and the emperor Haile Selassie. The result is a polyphonic novel that broadens our perceptions of the Ethiopian-Italian war and the lives of human beings in this great history.

Mengiste was born in Ethiopia, but her family left the country in the late 70s, during the Ethiopian revolution, which is central in her debut novelBeneath the Lion’s Gaze. Both her debut andThe Shadow Kinghas received great critical acclaim, and been translated into numerous languages.

Sofi Oksanenhas, like Mengiste, created fiction from historical events, such as a Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe during the second world war in her novelsPurgeandStalin’s Cows. Here, too, the experiences of women are central to the stories.

Now, both Ethiopia and Ukraine are at war again. Sofi Oksanen will join Maaza Mengiste for a conversation about the role of literature in helping us understand history and the times we live in.

The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.

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Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is an author, screenwriter, and former head of the Zanzibar International Film Festival. In 2003, the Kenyan won the Caine Prize for African Writing, and her 2013 debut novel, Dust, won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature. In 2015, Owuor visited the House of Literature, a visit that resulted in the Norwegian publication of Dust. The critically acclaimed The Dragonfly Sea followed in 2019. These authors are on Yvonnes reading list:

• Makena Onjerica
• Oduor Okwiri
• Dennis Mugaa
• Idza Luhumyo
• Troy Onyango
• Remy Ngamije
• Gloria Mwanige
• Kwame Nyongo
• Aleya Kassam

In this podcastseries the House of Literature in Oslo, Norway invites writers and thinkers to talk about their work, what they read and present their readinglist from the African continent and diaspora.

Interviewer in this episode Nosizwe Lise Baqwa

Editing and production by the House of Literature

Music by Ibou Cissokho

The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nadifa Mohamed is the writer of three novels, with the two first, Black Mamba and The Orchard of Lost Souls available in Norwegian translation so far. In 2017, Mohamed participated in The House of Literature’s festival on Somali literature, A nation of poets. During the pandemic, she interviewed Arundhati Roy and Édouard Louis for the House of Literature and Linn Ullmann’s podcast How to Proceed. In 2013, she appeared on Granta’s list of best young British writers. Mohamed’s latest novel, The Fortune Men, was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2021. Mohamed teaches creative writing at the Royal Holloway University in London. This is Nadifas reading list.

• Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma, translation by Frank Wynne, Heinemann. (2006) (originally in French 2000)
• Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote by Ahmadou Kourouma, translation by Frank Wynne, Heinemann (2003)(originally in French 1998)
• Home to Harlem by Claude Mckay (1928)
• Banjo by Claude Mckay (1929)
• Romance in Marseille by Claude Mckay(2020)(1933)
• Amiable with Big Teeth by Claude Mckay (2017) (1941)

In this podcastseries the House of Literature in Oslo, Norway invites writers and thinkers to talk about their work, what they read and present their readinglist from the African continent and diaspora.

Host in this episode Åshild Lappegård Lahn

Editing and production by the House of Literature

Music by Ibou Cissokho

The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Damon Galgut’s Booker Prize-winning novelThe Promisefollows the white South-African Swart family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The story follows the nuclear family through the waning years of the apartheid state, through the 1994 liberation and until the children are grown, close to our time.

Galgut’s story glides through the decades of South Africa’s recent history, weaving in and out between the various family members, often changing the perspective mid-sentence from one to another, or to the mildly sarcastic narrator. It is a story about a family’s decline, and about how life largely continues unchanged for the white minority in South-Africa.

Damon Galgut is the author of a number of award winning novels and plays, includingThe Good Doctor,Arctic SummerandIn a Strange Room.

At the House of Literature, he was joined by political scientist and artistNosizwe Lise Baqwafor a conversation about broken promises and a white, South-African family in decline.

The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD

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