A writers’ roundtable was co-organised with the Sigana Festival, hosted by the Alliance Francais, Nairobi, with Jo Lindsay Walton (SA), Dilman Dila (Uganda), Kevin Rigathy (Kenya), Alvin Kathembe (Kenya), Gabrielle Emem Harry (Nigeria), and Shingai Njeri Kagunda (Kenya). The panel was chaired by Kadija Sesay.
The panellists:
Dilman Dila is a writer, filmmaker, all-round storyteller, and social activist. He has been shortlisted for the BSFA Awards (2021), the Nommo Awards (2022), and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013), among many writing accolades. He wrote the stories for Kampala Yénkya. His short fiction has also appeared in Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, and in The Best of World SF V.2, among other anthologies. His second collection of short stories, Where Rivers Go To Die, is a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award 2024. His films have won multiple awards which can be viewed on patreon.com/dilstories.
Jo Lindsay Walton is Principal Research Fellow in Arts, Climate and Technology at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab and editor-at-large for Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. He is a co-creator of Kampala Yénkya and a contributor to the Imagine Alternatives and Applied African SF projects, which explore the use of games and storytelling to challenge dominant narratives rooted in Global North perspectives, and to raise consciousness and enact social change, particularly around climate justice. His fiction has been published in Big Echo, MIT Technology Review, Fireside Fiction, Cambridge Literary Review and elsewhere. He recently edited Utopia on the Tabletop (Ping Press 2024), and his monograph tentatively entitled After Capitalism: The End of the End of the World is forthcoming from Lever Press.
Kevin Rigathi is a Kenyan speculative fiction writer based in Nairobi. Over the years, a near addiction for creating things has seen him don multiple hats as a writer, digital artist, software developer, sound editor and podcaster. He serves as the writer and host of the Kenyan history podcast, “The Kenyan Experiment.”
Gabrielle Emem Harry is a Nigerian speculative fiction writer. She won the 2024 Nommo Short Story Award, was shortlisted for the 2024 Writivism Short Story Prize, was longlisted for the 2025 BSFA award, selected as a 2024 Voodoonauts Fellow and a 2023 LLEAA Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Logic(s), The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction Volume 3, Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Fiction, the Flametree Press African Short Ghost Stories Anthology, Omenana, Apparition, Isele and more. Her favourite stories are the ones that feel like dreams.
Shingai Njeri Kagunda is an AfroSurreal/futurist story weaver, teacher and eternal student. Shingai has an MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University and one book out in the world called & This is How to Stay Alive.
Alvin Kathembe (he/him) is a writer from Nairobi, Kenya. His poetry has been featured in Dust Poetry Magazine, The Lumiere Review, Old Love Skin: Voices From Contemporary Africa, and other publications. He co-edited down river road’s third issue—’Asphyxia’. His short stories have been published in Jalada, Omenana, Brittlepaper and Equipoise, available on Kindle. Find him on Twitter @SofaPhilosopher.
Kadija George Sesay, is a Sierra Leonean/British scholar – activist. She is the Publications Manager for Inscribe/Peepal Tree Press, where she commissions anthologies, such as Glimpse, a Black British speculative fiction anthology. She has edited several other anthologies and was publisher of SABLE LitMag. She has published her own poetry, short stories and essays, too. She is director and founder of the first International Black Speculative Writing Festival, co-founder of Mboka Festival of Arts Culture and Sport and founder of the ‘AfriPoeTree’ app. She has received awards and fellowships for her work.