Tales, stories, and narratives have the ability to project the imagination, heart, and mind into new landscapes, and they allow us to have new experiences that transform our view of reality. Guidance from African authors offers an enriching experience and an unprecedented perspective which invites us to look at the world with new eyes: as if we are meeting Africa for the first time. Chiara Piaggio and Igiaba Scego led an exploration of African literature, landscapes, and languages, indicating possible ways to immerse ourselves in a new experience between reality and imagination.
This event was part of the Africa Beyond Stereotypes series, held as part of the Questioni di Civiltà. Dialoghi di attualità e discerniment series, organized by Georgetown University and La Civiltà Cattolica.
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Chiara Piaggio has over 10 years of experience in the development sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a degree in philosophy with a concentration in anthropology. She has worked at the Louvre and at the Gallimard Publishing House. She works as a consultant in philanthropy and the promotion of contemporary African culture through collaborations with festivals and the publishing world.
Igiaba Scego is a writer and journalist born in Italy to a Somali family who is engaged in the dialogue between cultures, transculturality, and migration. She studied foreign languages and literatures at Sapienza University of Rome and obtained a Ph.D. in pedagogy at Roma Tre University. In 2003 she won the Eks & Tra Prize for migrant writers for the story Salsicce, in 2011 she won the Mondello Prize as an Italian author for La mia casa è dove sono (2010), and in 2020 she received the Naples Prize in the narrative category for La linea del colore (2020). Since 2006, she has participated in the Mantua Literature Festival. She curated the collection Africana. Raccontare il Continente al di là degli stereotipi (2021) with Chiara Piaggi.