The Campania Legge Talks are back, meetings between authors and readers aimed at investigating major contemporary themes. Igiaba Scego and Chiara Piaggio are the protagonists of this all-female talk.
On Friday, April 5, at 6 pm in the premises of the Fondazione Premio Napoli at Palazzo Reale, we will meet the winner of the Napoli Prize 2020, who, together with the anthropologist Chiara Piaggio, edited the second volume of “Africana. Journey into the African continent” (Feltrinelli 2024), a collection of writings by internationally renowned authors and emerging voices united by the goal of providing a tool to defend against those who stereotype and see the African reality as «a long stretch of huts».
Africana will open the doors for the reader to the many Africas within Africa, a modern, young, and creative continent like few others. A continent where literature flows like a raging river and distances itself from stereotypical views and labels imposed from the outside, to tell its own story in the first person.
Without any claim to completeness, the stories of Addonia, Mbembe, Selasi, Adhiambo Owuor, and many others are like windows through which it is possible to glimpse unseen panoramas, with the dual purpose of shattering prejudices and stereotypes on one hand, and showcasing new landscapes on the other. The goal is to decolonize the reader's view of the Continent and change their imaginations, which too often revert to a monolithic, wild, and cultureless Africa.
With the interventions of Sabrina Efionayi, a young Afro-descendant writer of Nigerian origins born and raised in Castel Volturno, Igiaba Scego and Chiara Piaggio will travel through this journey of stories in the history of the Continent along the road that has led African writers to the successes of recent years.
With unpublished and surprising texts, there will be discussions on literature that has managed to reflect history, from the colonial era through cultural and political upheavals to the creation of new States, social struggles, the first major cases of diaspora writers, to reach the recent avant-gardes dealing with a transformed Africa.
The audience will be able to interact with the speakers of the meeting through questions and reflections. This is the intent of the talks: not mere book presentations but opportunities for discussion based on the topics that the volumes and their authors convey.
Among the two, says Igiaba Scego, the real African is Piaggio, who has made many trips, touching many Africas.
«Our dream is to be able to create exchanges and bonds between European and African writers. Africa is full of creativity, energy, and resources. It contains countries that look to the future, where incredible things happen. Europe is afraid of the future, it is very old, tired, isolated. It fears relationships. Africa does not. It seeks dialogue, something very strong is happening there».