In bringing together writers and academics of African writing, the Nobel in Africa – Nobel Symposium in Literature was hailed this week as breaking down walls that separate and regulate different forms of creativity.
Speaking at the Opening Session of the symposium, Nobel Foundation Chair, Astrid Söderbergh Widding, praised STIAS and symposium convenors for putting together a rich programme that invites exchange and ongoing dialogue.
She went on to highlight the importance of the outreach sessions, in which some participants will deliver public lectures at Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape. “The Nobel Symposia are themselves by invitation only, and this is important as it allows for open exchange which can push forward the frontiers of knowledge and insight within the respective fields,” Söderbergh Widding said.
“But the fact that so many experts gather here at STIAS also calls for sharing. The symposia should not only be exclusive for the participants but rather contagious events where the deep expertise, the energy and power these symposia generate, may be released even outside the symposium to inspire others”, she said.
Delivering the welcome remarks, STIAS Director Edward K Kirumira, invited participants to enjoy the conviviality the symposium presents, the serendipitous encounters they will experience during the week, as well as the facilities and gardens.
He highlighted that the symposium was taking place during the STIAS Silver Jubilee, celebrating 25 years of the organisation’s existence. Also being celebrated in 2025 is the opening of the new extension of the Wallenberg Research Centre, which has been awarded a Net Zero Carbon Level 1 certificate by the Green Building Council of South Africa.
“The conference of literary scholars held at Makerere University back in 1962 set the stage for African writing. Let the Nobel Symposium in Literature at STIAS reset the stage for giving back to African writing in conversation with the world and for humanity,” Kirumira said.
“I hope the STIAS spirit will go with you and through you propagate creative spaces for the mind on the continent and in the world, with which we can find a renewed way of doing scholarship, of doing African writing, of giving back,” he said.
Organised under the theme, Retrieving Pasts, Imagining Futures: Creative Forms in African Writing, this is the fifth Symposium in the Nobel in Africa Series, which was launched in 2022, and the first one in literature.
Among symposium participants are two Nobel Laureates in Literature who are also STIAS Fellows, J. M. Coetzee and Abdulrazak Gurnah, as well as 40 celebrated writers and academics from Africa and across the globe, including Njabulo S. Ndebele, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Jennifer Makumbi, Aminatta Forna, Sarah Nuttall and Maaza Mengiste.
The opening remarks were immediately followed by the first panel discussion, which brought together Sierra Leonean/Scottish author Aminatta Forna; Sudanese/British author Jamal Mahjoub; Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah; and South African writer and academic Njabulo Ndebele in a session chaired by Sarah Nuttall.
The Nobel in Africa – NOBEL SYMPOSIA Series is a STIAS initiative in partnership with Stellenbosch University, under the auspices of the Nobel Foundation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Swedish Academy, with funding from the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Marcus & Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. The Literature Symposium took place from 3 to 7 November 2025.
The full recording of the Opening Session can be viewed here:
