The New York Black & African Literature Festival opens today, September 18, at Harlem Stage, beginning a three-day gathering of writers, poets, thinkers and readers from across Africa and the global Black diaspora. The 2026 festival runs through Sunday, September 20, with its main program at the historic Harlem Stage Gatehouse, 150 Convent Avenue in West Harlem.
This year’s theme, The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near, turns toward literature as a way of thinking about neighborhood, memory, migration, family, political life and belonging. The weekend brings together Namwali Serpell, Mahmood Mamdani, Conceição Evaristo, Patricia Smith, Camonghne Felix, Ibi Zoboi, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Angela Flournoy, Myriam J. A. Chancy and other voices from across the Black world.
Friday starts with Toni Morrison, then poetry takes over the Gatehouse
Friday’s Harlem Stage program begins at 6 p.m. with “Toni Morrison and the Black World”, an opening keynote from novelist and critic Namwali Serpell. At 8 p.m., “Let the Poets Govern” shifts opening night into poetry, music and performance, with Camonghne Felix, Titilope Sonuga, Yaissa Jimenez, Patricia Smith, Jasmine Mans and Yacouba Sissoko. The opening-night performance requires a separate ticket.
A weekend built around Black books, ideas and gathering
Saturday expands the festival across conversations about young readers, mystery writing, the Niger Delta, Uganda, friendship and chosen family, followed by a screening of the Academy Award-winning film Tsotsi. The weekend also includes a book fair with more than 25 booksellers at Harlem Stage on Saturday and Sunday.
Sunday moves through popular literature, food and memory, Black writing in Portuguese and literary adaptation before Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo closes the festival at 6 p.m. with a bilingual keynote on memory, ancestry, women’s lives and escrevivência, writing rooted in lived Black experience.
What to know before going
The New York Black & African Literature Festival runs September 18–20 at Harlem Stage, 150 Convent Avenue at West 135th Street. Most festival sessions are free with a festival pass, subject to capacity; Friday’s “Let the Poets Govern” is separately ticketed. Readers should check Harlem Stage and the festival’s official program for current reservation and ticket availability before traveling.
The weekend places Harlem inside a much larger Black literary geography. New York is the meeting point, but the conversations stretch across Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and the diaspora.
Sources: Harlem Stage; New York Black & African Literature Festival official program.