Virtually Yours #24
Kalaf Epalanga
A series of online discussions - Virtual Gatherings - with the award-winning author Zukiswa Wanner exploring contemporary African Literature with authors.
Kalaf Epalanga (1978) is a writer and musician born in Benguela, Angola, and based in Berlin. As a musician, he co-founded the record label Enchufada and is a member of Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016). He has written columns for the Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola and the Brazilian literary magazine Quatro Cinco Um. He published two collections of literary chronicles in Portugal and Angola ‘Estórias de Amor para Meninos de Cor’ <Love Stories for Colored Kids> and ‘O Angolano que Comprou Lisboa (Por Metade do Preço)’ <The Angolan who Bought Lisbon (at Half the Price) >. He curated the 2021 Berlin African Book Festival. <Whites Can Dance Too> is his debut novel, translated into English by Daniel Hahn and published by Faber.
More about the Author see web: kalafepalanga.com
twitter: @kalaf
An exhilarating debut novel told through three different voices, Whites Can Dance Too is Kalaf Epalanga’s reflection on and celebration of the music of his homeland, the intertwining of cultural roots, and freedom and love.
It took being caught at a border without proper documents for me to realise I’d always been a prisoner of sorts. Kuduro had been my passport to the world, thanks to it I’d travelled to places I’d never dreamed of visiting. But the chickens had come home to roost . . .
Hours before performing at one of Europe’s most iconic music festivals, Kalaf Epalanga is detained at the border on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. Trapped, his thoughts soon thrum to the beat of kuduro, the blistering, techno-infused Angolan music which has taken him from Luanda to Kristiansund, Beirut to Rio de Janeiro, Paris to Lisbon.
If you missed the live-session, you can watch the recordings here> Virtually Yours #24