Event information
Writer Maneo Mohale returns to the Open Book stage for the latest instalment of the festival's ongoing one-on-one interview series, this time in conversation with historian and poet Athambile Masola.
Masola's work moves fluidly across language and genre, drawing on both academic historical research and creative writing to illuminate the lives of Black women who resisted erasure across South African history. Mohale is a writer and editor whose own work engages questions of gender, identity and memory, making them a fitting interviewer for a conversation of this depth.
Unlike the festival's larger panel discussions, this format allows for a slower, more extended exchange between two writers with overlapping intellectual concerns. Expect the conversation to trace how Masola moves between disciplines, what draws her toward historical figures whose stories have been marginalised, and how form and genre choices shape the way that history gets told.