Literature and arts

The writer Colm Tóibín had to move to Spain and the United States before he could write about his grief and his homeland, Ireland

The Latin American-Californian artist Saul Villegas blends art and science in his unique 3D digital worlds

Writer Kamel Daoud, who won the 2024 Prix Goncourt for his novel Huris, on censorship and the regime in Algeria

Musician, poet and artist Tarriona "Tank" Ball on the unique power of spoken word

Singer Zily, from the island nation of Mayotte, doesn't call herself a feminist, but her East African fusion music is a tribute to strong women and their political struggle

Lee Young-do's "The Bird That Drinks Tears" sold millions in South Korea. While English readers have to wait, a German translation has just been published.

In his digital travel miniatures, New York photographer Sam Youkilis documents the decline of our analog culture

The writer Helon Habila grew up in Nigeria, later moved to the UK and now lives in the USA. In his books he revisits the people, places and politics he has experienced first-hand

Peso Pluma fills stadiums with a mix of traditional Mexican sounds and international pop. His songs about drug violence and love trigger strong emotions among fans and critics alike

For a long time, textile art was belittled as a women’s craft. A new exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam shows the subversive potential of this art form

The Texan Mexican artist José Villalobos focuses on the clothing of Mexican Norteño culture. It’s extravagant and camp but is also seen as the epitome of masculinity

With “Tender Photo”, Nigerian author Emmanuel Iduma has created a lively platform for visual art from around the continent

Francesca Ekwuyasi is a Nigerian writer whose debut novel “Butter, Honey, Pig, Bread” follows three women on a journey of love, reconciliation, and food. In an interview, she talks about living in the diaspora and writing about queerness and faith.

Tunisian musician Emel Mathlouthi moves between genres and languages. Recently she has published an album exclusively produced by women. A conversation about metal, feminism and the Arabic language

The artist Shirin Neshat has long been concerned with the role of women in Iran. Her work has never been as topical as it is today

Colombia’s capital is home to a vibrant and political rap scene which reaches a large audience with its powerful lyrics

French photographer Marvin Bonheur grew up in the banlieue of Paris. Today, he works internationally as a documentary photographer and in advertising. In both fields, he is aiming to portray those who are most often overlooked

Futuristic films such as “Dune” often feature desert peoples reminiscent of the Amazigh culture of North Africa — without acknowledging their influence. British-Moroccan filmmaker and designer Elias Riadi, in contrast, is building on the Amazigh tradition of his ancestors to create his very own version of an „indigenous futurism“

The Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz has always been drawn to distant horizons. From Brazil via New York, he found his way to Berlin

In Uganda, even the dancefloor is politically contentious. The Nyege Nyege Festival and the Hakuna Kulala label provide the soundtrack for cosmopolitan Africa

Born into a Tuareg family, Ibrahim al-Koni has written about his birthplace for half a century. On why the desert won't let him go and why words can never do it justice

“The Red Book of Farewells” by Pirkko Saisio is a creative big bang. It explores love and loss in Finland in the seventies

The web project “Black Med” is a diverse sound archive of the Mediterranean region. It shows how European culture has been influenced by Africa and Asia for thousands of years

The beat booms and the lyrics are radically intimate. The rap music of the French-African duo Triplego is created in the space between the Maghreb and the banlieue

In his coming-of-age novel “The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa”, Stephen Buoro shows how pop culture imported from the West reinforces post-colonial trauma. A conversation

Comics are booming in Taiwan but until recently, LGBTQ storylines were hard to find. Publisher Aho Huang wants to change all that

Circus and theatre for refugee children in the middle of a conflict-torn area? The Flying Carpet Festival on the Turkish-Syrian border makes the impossible possible

Opera: outmoded and out of touch or timeless and eternal? We ask the soprano singer Fatma Said

More than half a century ago, Margaret Busby became Britain’s first black woman publisher, upending the literary scene. Five decades later, her work is far from done

Xi Xi’s novel “My City” takes readers back to Hong Kong in the 1970s.

In his debut novel, Jakob Guanzon explores the reality of the “working poor” in the US. An interview about fathers and sons, money troubles and the dangerous legacy of the American Dream

Taiwan is often portrayed as a model Asian democracy by the West. But how free and open-minded is the country really? Author Li Ang on a question she’s been asking for decades

Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi and Chinese writer Yan Lianke exchanged letters for us. The result is a very personal exchange about censorship, loss, and the pain that is expressed between the lines

Author NoViolet Bulawayo writes about Zimbabwe using the rhythms of her mother tongue Ndebele – even though she has long lived in the USA. A conversation about modern African storytelling and living between languages

It would seem hopeless to keep an opera house running during times of war. Vasyl Vovkun, general director of the National Opera in Lviv, talks about how he and his team keep working nonetheless

“Mystetskyi Arsenal” in Kyiv hosts exhibitions, theater shows and festivals. Museum manager Olga Zhuk describes the race to put up exhibitions between power outages, and why it is important to retain spaces for reflection

What makes a building a beautiful structure? Ornamentation on the front? Or is a building beautiful if it houses as many people as possible? Can we separate the aesthetic evaluation of a building from its construction circumstances and the ecological and human price it cost?

In music, forgoing excess often stands for minimalist innovation. Rarely has less been so much more than in the nine piano pieces that the musician Malakoff Kowalski handpicked for this playlist

A new historical world atlas claims to break away from a purely Eurocentric view of the world. It almost succeeds

In a world of fast-moving news about the War in Ukraine and climate change, it is often hard to focus and take time to create art. But literature works on a different clock: It needs time to form and silence to emerge.

The long shadows of apartheid: Damon Galgut, Booker Prize winner for “The Promise”, on the psychological effects of apartheid and South Africa’s enduring inequality

Artist Salwa Rahen describes destroying a lifetime of work and why she can't imagine herself working again under Taliban rule. A conversation.

Ever since the Taliban returned, music has been banned and it has been forbidden for woman to sing. Yet a number of female Afghan musicians continue their careers in exile. Introducing a selection of famous singers - and and their songs.

Multimedia artist Musquiqui Chihying explores how people of colour are portrayed in film and television - and what camera technology has to do with it. A conversation

South African literature slipped from the international gaze after the end of apartheid. Books by black authors in particular rarely reached foreign readers. Now festivals, small publishers and the film industry are finally changing the picture

Is there something to be learned from traveling? South African writer Lerato Mogoatlhe has traveled to thirty African countries – and learned a lot about herself in the process

Publishers in South Africa have long thought that Black communities do not read all that much. New book clubs are finally changing this picture

Both the genocide of the Herero in Namibia and the Boer War in South Africa were brutal events, but the history books only tell of “heroes”. Can historical fiction give the victims a voice?

Ahmed Soura lost his family in Burkina Faso and suffered racism in Europe. When he danced to Händel’s “Messiah” in Berlin, he understood: those who really want to be free must redeem themselves

Our society considers culture and theatre to be a luxury. Yet theatre is a great school of empathy and needs to be valued.

Power outages, lack of young talent and scarce materials: In Damascus, arts and crafts struggle to survive

From a Somalian childhood to reading books in Paris and writing in Germany: On why I had to learn a foreign language to express myself freely

How to write about things you haven’t experienced yourself.

For a long time, diversity was not an issue in many literary publishing houses. Suddenly everyone wants diversity. About an industry in transition

The British sculptor Antony Gormley has been exploring caves since childhood. A conversation about fantasy, fears and the traces of our ancestors that he has encountered underground

Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung reflects on the meaning we give to the things we make. A conversation

The writer Joanna Bator is one of the most important voices of contemporary Polish literature. Her new novel is about angry women and women and deep psychological wounds. Is that coincidence or a statement?

In her novel, author Cho Nam-Joo tells of a South Korean woman who is caught between tradition and hypermodernity

At the end of the 1930s, a plague epidemic was averted in Russia. Lyudmila Ulitskaya's novel about the era reads as a parable of our time.