December 1 - 6:30pm - In honor of World AIDS Day, The Kitchen: Conversations that Feed Your Soul and Rofhiwa Book Cafe, invite you to a virtual conversation with Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes and Dr. Tonia Poteat on Black women living with HIV/AIDS in the US and in Southern Africa. 

December 2 & 3 - Karla Holloway and Blair Kelley discuss the Netflix adaptation of Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, Passing which explores the complicated intersection between race, class and culture through two women's experiences of passing in 1920s New York. Join us for this spirited conversation which will be preceded by a Rofhiwa in-store screening of Passing - the film. Holloway is the author of the novel A Death in Harlem which Kirkus Reviews described as the "the spiritual successor to Nella Larsen's 1929 novel..." Blair Kelley is a historian of the African American experience who is active both in an outside the academy. She was highlighted as one of the "top tweeting historians" by History News Network.

Nov 19 - An evening of poetry and conversation with  debut author of Ghost in a Black Girl's Throat, Khalisa Rae, at her Rofhiwa Book Cafe book signing with some of the best and brightest poetry talents Durham has to offer. 

 

Nov 3 -Editors Cynthia Manick, Len Lawson, and Gary Jackson read from and discuss The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, a groundbreaking collection highlighting work from poets who have written verse within the growing tradition of Afrofuturism.

Nov 12 - Through the Night is a cinema verité portrait of three working NY mothers whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center: a mother working the overnight shift as an essential worker at a hospital; another holding down three jobs to support her family; and a woman who for over two decades has cared for the children of parents with nowhere else to turn.

October 29 - A celebration of award winning Jamaican novelist and poet Kei Miller's collection of essays, Things I have Withheld.  Kei Miller will be in conversation with UC Santa Cruz Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Xavier Livermon.

October 15 - For this conversation, we are joined by author, Anne Wynter and illustrator, Oge Mora whose incredible illustrations perfectly meet Wynter's exquisite onomatopoeia in this fabulous book. Can’t wait!

October 1 - “Erasure of Black Thought” will be a conversation among Black academics that unpacks the current challenges to freedom of expression in schools, colleges, and the public sphere in regards to racism, history, and diversity (i.e. critical race theory). The event will offer a clear-eyed view of the current slate of censorious threats, while also providing concrete action items to push back against them.

Aug 26 - We are thrilled to host our very first in-person book talk with Da'Shaun L. Harrison on August 26, 2021! Da’Shaun Harrison – a fat, Black, disabled, and nonbinary trans writer–offers an incisive, fresh, and precise exploration of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, foregrounding the state-sanctioned murders of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people in historical analysis. 

Aug 3 - We are elated to host the launch event for Black Boy Joy on August 3, 2021. Black Boy Joy is an upcoming middle grade anthology, edited by Kwame Mbalia, NC-based author of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky. We are joined by a powerhouse team of authors and contributors to Black Boy Joy: BB Alston, Don P. Hooper, George M. Johnson, Justin A. Reynolds, and of course, Kwame Mbalia. 

These are today’s top and rising-star Black authors who have contributed genre-spanning stories to this fresh and vital middle-grade anthology about the joys and complexities of Black boyhood. Can’t wait!

June 9 - Professor Shanna Greene Benjamin and Dr. Barbara Boswell celebrate their new books and lead us in conversation about the intellectual legacies of Black Women in South Africa and the US.

Jun 2nd - We celebrate the US publication of Sifiso Mzobe's Young Blood, the novel named one of the Most Anticipated Crime Novels of 2021 by Crime Reads. Mzobe will be in conversation with novelist, short story writer and editor, Jacob Ross whose crime fiction novel, The Bone Readers won the inaugural Jhalak Prize in 2017.

Jun 15th - Join us for a spirited conversation and celebration of La Marr Jurelle Bruce's new book, How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity (Duke University Press). This event is free with registration. All are welcome, on Tuesday, June 15th at 6:00 p.m. EST.

Apr 29th - Join Blair and Rofhiwa Bookcafé for a celebration of National Poetry Month with a virtual reading by poets L. Teresa Church, Cynthia Manick, and L. Lamar Wilson, on Thursday, April 28 at 6:30 p.m. EST.

March 26th — In this first conversation we invite two poets, Dr. Stella Nyanzi and Professor Tsitsi Jaji. In one hour and across two continents, we asked them to read and reflect and take us wherever they wished to go.