JAY Lit poetry editor Gabriel Awuah Mainoo, on Saturday 12th October 2024, delivered a masterful rendition of poetry and music in collaboration with Anne Green Munk and Torben Bjørnskov at the Dialogue with Africa festival, which took place in Denmark. Ghanaian author Gabriel Awuah Mainoo and Danish author Anne Green Munk read out loud from their poetic book of letters Wherever the sea spits you (2024) accompanied by Danish musician and composer Torben Bjørnskov.
The book revolves around the Danish-Ghanaian slave history and its imprints in modern time as well as being a part of a globalised world threatened by pollution, inequality, and climate change. With the book, Gabriel and Anne wish to create a dialogue across cultures and an understanding of different world views.
The African literature festival, Dialogue with Africa is organized by Danish Pen, Aarhus University, and Aarhus Litteraturcenter. It took place in Aarhus at Godsbanen between 11th and 14th of October 2024, featuring several African authors who provided the Danish public with new insights through literature. At the festival, there were many intriguing lectures, debates, and readings with Ghanaian, Ugandan, Kenyan, and Danish authors and researchers. The festival explored parts of the contemporary African literary scene through themes: ‘Debates in African Literature Right Now’, ‘Africa’s Diverse Languages’, ‘Writers in Exile’, and ‘Representing slavery in Ghana’.
Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is a multiple-award winning Ghanaian writer, poet, editor, and lyricist who has won many literary awards including the Ghana Association of Writers Award, the Samira Bawumia Literature Prize, the Africa Haiku Prize, and the Singapore Poetry Contest. In 2024 so far, he has been named the International-Writer-In-Residence at Hong Kong Baptist University, and has represented Ghana at the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival in the UK. He was JAY Lit‘s spotlight poet in September 2024.
Congratulations and more grease, Gabriel!
