Sun,
11:00
Poetry Talk with Stella Nyanzi
Writing ourselves to freedom
Stella Nyanzi (born 1974 in Jinja, Uganda) is a poet, feminist activist, and doctorate in medical anthropology with numerous publications on sexuality, reproductive health, and gender politics. She came to Munich as a fellow of PEN Germany’s Writers in Exile program in 2022.
Openly denouncing in her poems the human rights violations under the dictatorship of President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, which has lasted for more than three decades, she has been imprisoned several times in her home country. She writes, “words, mere words took me to prison,” in her bilingual poetry collection Im Mundexil (published by Das Wunderhorn 2025), translated by Matthias Göritz. In this volume, she describes her experiences as a dissident in Uganda and as an exile in Germany. Nyanzi established a form of protest she calls “radical rudeness,” which satirizes the tyranny of the Ugandan government with harsh, deliberately vulgar criticism. This approach is found throughout Nyanzi’s poems, where she repeatedly addresses Museveni directly: “Even in exile, / Far away from the home you raped, / I will continue poking your anus, / Poking the leopard’s anus with sharp words.” The poems in the collection testify to a fervent political activism—the German discourse is also closely observed—but at the same time, they address the poet’s personal experience of loss in exile, as well as the tension between newfound freedom and ties to her homeland: “Exile is not forever. / Exile is not surrender. / Exile is just retreat to re-strategise.”
Stella Nyanzi in conversation with Dzekashu Macviban
The event will be interpreted into German and English. Kindly supported by ECHOO Konferenzdolmetschen.
The event takes place at Akademie der Künste: Clubraum.
- Stella Nyanzi
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Location:
Akademie der Künste
Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
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Admission:
9/7 €
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