Podcasts that offer content with African and Black Literature.

Where we look at podcasts featuring African and Black Literature.

A podcast is an episodic series of spoken word digital audio files that a user can download to a personal device for easy listening. Streaming applications and podcasting services provide a convenient, integrated way to manage a personal consumption queue across many podcast sources and playback devices. Some of the most popular platforms for podcasts today are Spotify, SoundCloud, Anchor, Apple, Google, and others.

In recent times, podcasts have grown in importance as more people tune in and African and Black literature has not been left behind as content creators fill in an important niche. These audio products which analyse writers work, interview them, voice their stories, and even more, can be found wherever African and Black people exist.

Here are some podcasts that cover the African and Black literary space collated using both my own lists as well those made by our friends at Literandra and Electric Literature. Please note that this is podcasts that are currently active (posted at least once in 2020).

This is a work in progress and will continue to be updated. If you run a podcast that focuses on African and Black literature and would like to be listed please do not hesitate to get in touch.

• The 100 Caribbean Books That Made Us podcast from NGC Bocas Lit Fest podcast explores how iconic, classic books of past decades have influenced and inspired writers of today
• African Folktales Podcast with Makafui is an in-depth exploration of folktales from all parts of Africa.
• Anonymus Podcast, an initiative of Catalogus, a platform for promoting Mozambican authors, is a series of conversations about art, culture, and society through the eyes of people from different areas of knowledge, attentive to what happens in everyday life.
• Afrolivresque podcast – the podcast by Acèle Nadale who runs one of the best blogs on African literature with a focus on the Francophone side of the continent comes with an excellent podcast. It is conducted in French.
• ART for the People podcast run by Lagos, Nigeria-based Molara Wood interviews people in the art business including writers like Zukiswa Wanner, Victor Ehikhamenor, Oyinkan Braithwaite. Can be found on SoundCloud, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.
• Ayamba LitCast – Coming from Nigeria, this collective podcast presents the African writer to the world.
• Bakwa Cast– Cameroon based @BakwaCast features interviews with artists, curators, writers, techies, performers, to policymakers.
• BCLF Cocoa Pod – a Caribbean storytelling experience in which writers of Caribbean heritage narrate their own stories. Each story is a seed, a nugget of an original work of fiction, rich with the rhythm, pitch and intonation of the one who wrote it.
• Black and Read is a biweekly book club podcast hosted by US-based Terry Brown where guests discuss a work of literature from the unique perspectives of black people in America.
• Black Chick Lit Podcast, run by Danielle and Mollie, features in-depth discussions of the latest and greatest works penned by black women.
• Black Market Reads is a project of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
• Books and Rhymes, run by London, UK based Sarah Ozo-Irabor, amplifies new and canonical (African) literature while taking you on a musical journey through the works of new and classic authors.
• Bulaq, co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey and M Lynx Qualey, focuses on contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa.
• Cheeky Natives, run by Johannesburg, South Africa-based Dr Alma Nalisha and @Mr_Mokgoroane, is a Podcast covering Black Literature in all its depth.
• Chroniques littéraires africaines – Immerse yourself in the imaginations of Afro-descendants and black continents
• Contemporary Black Canvas, founded and hosted by Oxford, Pennsylvania US-based Dr Pia Deas, celebrates the depth and breadth of Black artistic and intellectual thought.
• Griots & Galaxies Podcast – The podcast is created and hosted by Jenna Hanchey, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, and Chinelo Onwualu, with the assistance of sound engineer Bailey Pyritz.
• I Found This Great Book by US-based Curtis Anderson covers books, both new and old, with an emphasis on subjects and authors of under-represented groups.
• Le Podcast de 1949 is a production of the 1949Books a feminist library in Abdijan, Cote D’Ivoire.
• Les podcasts de Gangoueus is a podcast by Réassi Ouabonzi who blogs about African and diaspora literature in French on his blog Gangoueus from a reader’s perspective since 2007.
• Lifewriting: Write for Your Life! – Authors and screenwriters Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due (and guests!) on writing, the writer’s life, Hollywood, the work/family balance and relationships – the tools writers need to make themselves the heroes/heroines of their own story.
• Lire à Douala – this is the podcast of Douala reading initiative Lire à Douala (English: reading in Doula) whose objective is to promote reading, written expression and the development of literary culture, in particular for young people in Douala, Cameroon.
• Minorities in Publishing, hosted by US-based Jennifer Baker, discusses diversity (or lack thereof) in the book publishing industry with other professionals working in-house as well as authors and those in the literary scene.
• New Daughters of Africa podcast – a project of InterKontinental anchored by journalist, columnist, and award-winning novelist Panashe Chigumadzi. It is available on popular podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, et al.
• Nipe Story (Tell Me A Story) is a fortnightly podcast, hosted by Kilifi, Kenya based Kevin Mwachiro gives voice to written short stories.
• Noire Histoire, run by US-based Natasha McEachron, features Black history facts, literature, and motivational stories from across the Black diaspora.
• Oitenta Noventa – We are a cultural project that promotes access to the thought of our time through literature.
• Open Book Festival Podcast – The Open Book Festival is a literary festival with a focus on South African literature in an international context held in Cape Town, South Africa.  The podcast is a recording from the festival.
• Over the Top Under The Radar – Welcome to the Over the Top and Under the Radar, a news and current events podcast from award-winning journalist Gary Younge and Carys Afoko.
• PEN South Africa’s The Empty Chair podcast –  “The Empty Chair: A Transatlantic Conversation” features conversations among novelists, poets, theatre-makers, artists, musicians, activists, journalists, legal scholars, academics, and historians based in South Africa and the United States of America. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor FM, and the PEN SA website.
• Soma Nami Podcast – A Social and Cultural Commentary podcast of Soma Nami Books Join the Soma Nami duo Muthoni Muiruri and Wendy Njoroge as they bridge the intersection of books with culture, community, current events and everything in between from a Pan-African lens.
• Something Bookish Podcast, run by Lagos, Nigeria-based Amyn Bawa-Allah popularly known as Lipglossmaffia, is the show for every reader with a wicked sense of humour, who loves to have a good time while learning something new.
• Storyz from my hair, run by Maryland, USA based Lucie Chihandae, is a writer’s lounge where one can hear from some of the best in the business talk about writing and everything around it. She has featured Leila Aboulela, Ishmael Beah, Chika Unigwe, and many other writers.
• The Amplify Project led by writers Patricia Cumper and Pauline Walker invites Black writers for the stage, page, and screen to talk about themselves, their work, what inspires them, and why they write.
• The Hidden Lives of Writers – Fiona Snyckers and Gail Schimmel are working writers – and their favourite people are writers. Join them as they dive deep into HOW and WHY successful writers write.
• The Other Friends Podcast from YNaija focuses on African writers and poets contributing to the global conversation on Nigerian poetry.
• The Nami Podcast is an anthology podcast of lightly dramatized stories and poetry by West African writers.
• The VS Podcast is a bi-weekly podcast, run by poets Danez Smith and Franny Choi who have conversations with the people who have chosen to stand between the world and its articulation into language.
• Things Fall Together – A new podcast (and vodcast) with literature at its centre with Kenyan-based Muthoni Muiruri, Wendy Marube, and Sheba Akinyi.
• Ursa Short Fiction – A podcast distributed in partnership with Lit Hub Radio where co-hosts Deesha Philyaw (author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) and Dawnie Walton (author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev) tell their truths. Find them on iTunes or Spotify.
• We Want the Airwaves, run by US-based Nia King, features queer and trans artists of colour to make a living off their creative and intellectual labour including writers.
• Writing Africa Podcast – News and Interviews with African and Black writers with James Murua.