New York Black and African Literature Festival

New York Black and African Literature Festival A literary festival in the heart of New York connecting the global black diaspora.

We are still accepting volunteers for NYBALF2026 (September 18-20 in Harlem). Roles are open for registration, guest and...
07/28/2026

We are still accepting volunteers for NYBALF2026 (September 18-20 in Harlem). Roles are open for registration, guest and artist support, venue setup and coordination, program and production assistance, social media and communications, bookfair and vendor support, general festival operations.

No previous festival experience required. Volunteer shifts will be designed so team members can still experience parts of the festival when off duty.

Sign up through www.blackandafricanlitfestny.com/volunteer.

The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near For the second edition of the New York Black and African Literature Fes...
07/22/2026

The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near

For the second edition of the New York Black and African Literature Festival, we are asking what literature owes the places nearest to it. Who can read the work. Who can access it. Who is addressed by it. What it returns to the world from which it came.

Three days in Harlem: September 18 to 20, 2026.

Program and guests announced soon.

Last September, readers, writers, poets, artists and thinkers gathered in Harlem for the inaugural New York Black and Af...
07/18/2026

Last September, readers, writers, poets, artists and thinkers gathered in Harlem for the inaugural New York Black and African Literature Festival.

The room held conversation, performance, books, argument, laughter and the beginnings of a community we are continuing to build.

NYBALF returns September 18–20, 2026, with the theme: The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near.

Over the coming weeks, we will share this year’s guests, program, venues, books and ways to take part.

Save the date. See you in September!

OPEN CALL: Event Proposals + VolunteersThe New York Black and African Literature Festival is inviting proposals for comm...
07/07/2026

OPEN CALL: Event Proposals + Volunteers

The New York Black and African Literature Festival is inviting proposals for community-led events, conversations, workshops, performances, readings, gatherings, artistic and scholalry interventions for our 2026 festival.

This year’s theme, The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near, turns our attention to the local: the neighborhood, the city, the language community, the family, the reader, the audience, and the political commons.

We are eager to hear from writers, artists, organizers, teachers, publishers, performers, collectives, students, booksellers, community workers, and cultural practitioners thinking seriously about Black and African literature, culture, memory, place, language, and belonging.

We are also opening our volunteer sign-up for collaborators who would like to help bring the festival to life across production, guest support, social media, documentation, hospitality, venue coordination, and community outreach.

Submit your proposal or sign up to volunteer through the link in bio.

Deadline: August 7th and September 7th
Festival dates: September 18–20, 2026

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The New York Black and African Literature Festival returns for its second edition, from September 18-20 in Harlem, with ...
06/22/2026

The New York Black and African Literature Festival returns for its second edition, from September 18-20 in Harlem, with the theme, The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near.

NYBALF2026 will gather writers, poets, public intellectuals, artists, and readers from across the US, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the wider diaspora for three days of dialogue, readings, performance, and shared reflection.

This year’s festival turns to the local as a primary site of concern. We are programming the 2026 festival amid visible geopolitical instability. The postwar architecture of rights and norms, always compromised, always selectively applied, is currently being dismantled by its architects. And as people across the world grapple with fracturing democracies, mass displacement, and the disorienting remaking of human life by artificial intelligence, our 2026 program has been designed to make these pressures intelligible and therefore contestable.

We believe a lot of today's challenges must be tackled at communal and local levels, where imagination must meet material conditions. We are interested in the places where large historical forces become intimate: the body, the family, the neighborhood, the language community, young people trying to make sense of the world, the city, the political commons we cannot psychologically exit.

Expect panels, books readings and conversations, workshops and masterclasses, performances and invocation.

Co-programming opportunities and calls for event proposals will open in July, keeping with our commitment to remain porous to ideas and communities outside our curatorial view. Guest and program announcements will follow.

Sign up for updates, guest announcements, and calls for community programming at www.blackandafricanlitfestny.com.

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9707 63rd Road Rego Park
New York, NY
11374

Telephone

+19286078518

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