Essays

Julia Martinčič is the winner of our international essay competition. Read her essay Skin

Elijah Koome is one of two runners up in our international essay competition. Read his essay Generation M.

Malumi Adeboye is one of two runners up in our international essay competition. Read his essay My Generation.

Festival author and dancer Tishani Doshi on the fearlessness required in both writing and dancing.

Read two poems from Holmberg's Nordic council prize nominated poetry collection Juolgevuođđu ("Sole").

The novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela by Njabulo S Ndebele explores the meaning of South Africa itself, writes associate professor Tonje Vold.

You don't know fuckery until you have been loved like Mandela. Read Koleka Putuma's poem.

Everyday returns after violence like the rain after droughts, Ramallah residents and authors Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson write in this dialogue-essay.

He might have passed for a Cupid, were it not for the long socks. Extract from a book by Maria Stepanova.

I had read popular fiction and not Dostoevsky for a reason: to protect my unique genius. Read Gunnhild Øyehaug's humorous text. 

"The sea is my life, our life, the mother's breast of all living things", writes author Yann Queffélec.

There are so many things you can do wrong. Essay by Heinz Bude, sociologist and author.

Ideology and propaganda in Russia during the Soviet era looked to the future and the dream of socialism’s ultimate triumph. Today, however, the glorious past has taken over the role of symbolic capital for the powers that be.

Where is “arguably the most vigorous and exciting body of poetry in our time” being written? According to Stewart Brown and Mark McWatt, the answer is the Caribbean.

Read Inger Bråtveits essay about Dubravka Ugrešić.