The 29th edition of the Time of the Writer festival
presented by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal
during March 2026 will host a hybrid programme with live and online events
reaching out to audiences beyond physical and geographical boundaries.
Festival curator Shafinaaz Hassim explains: “Our festival programme is curated to reach audiences far and wide by taking uniquely South African stories and experiences to the world. Our authors play a dynamic role in shaping history through their shared stories”.
Highly acclaimed author Zakes Mda who recently was part of a cohort of authors to win a landmark class action lawsuit in the US against the unauthorised use of his books to train AI by artificial intelligence company Anthropic headlines the festival’s online programme. He will speak about the implications of AI in an online panel with industry expert Arthur Goldstuck. The discussion will be moderated by analyst Angelo Fick.
“AI challenges traditional modes of sharing stories and it has implications on intellectual property and copyright which are of huge concern to not only writers but also other creatives”, explains Shafinaaz Hassim.
Author and publishing maverick, Melinda Ferguson and winner of the Canex Prize 2025 Thobeka Yose will explore power through their courageous memoirs that speak to the Literature Of Lived Experience.
In Afrikaans Across The Ages, Jonathan Amid will interrogate the concept of how language has evolved through Afrikaans literature in order to stay true to the spoken word as it yields to different local cultures and how it captures reader nostalgia through stories, through the works of Gaireyah Fredericks, Charmaine Africa and Theo Kemp. The session is supported by the Afrikaanse Taal & Kultuur Vereeniging (ATKV).
Extending the genre of memoir to activism, Danyela Demir will speak to Zukiswa Wanner about her memoir capturing her experience on the Flotilla to Gaza, on a panel with activists and writers Megan Choritz and Susan Abulhawa who also use literature as a powerful form of activism.
“The power of words can break the psychological siege, give rise to political conscience and inspire a flotilla of resistance. In the case of Palestine, the works of these authors is also a witness to genocide”, explains Shafinaaz Hassim as she anticipates the discussion.
In A Theatre Of Words, South African performing artists, Peter Terry and Kutlawo Masote, will bring their life works to the stage of words by using both memoir and storytelling. UNISA academic Andile Xaba’s book will highlight the history of Soweto Theatre. The session will be moderated by theatre critic and arts journalist Tracey Saunders.
Ismail Mahomed, the Director for the Centre for Creative Arts, explains: “These and other exciting online sessions curated by Shafinaaz Hassim anchors the festival as a site for literary enjoyment, critical thinking, resistance and solidarity. By giving our writers a broader audience beyond Durban we hope that we can also contribute to growing the markets for South African literature beyond our borders”.
The live festival programme in Durban will include book launches, creative writing workshops, outreach visits by authors to community venues and a dedicated Children’s festival programme. The Time of the Writer festival takes place live at the KZNSA Gallery in Durban and online from March 23 to 28, 2026.
The festival schedule can be viewed at https://tow.ukzn.ac.za/29th-online/
All events to the festival are free. The 29th edition of the
Time of the Writer festival is supported by the University of KwaZulu-Natal,
National Arts Council of South Africa and the KZN Department of Sport, Arts
& Culture. Festival partners include the Wits Writing Centre, DALRO and the
ATKV.
About The Centre For
Creative Arts:
The 30-year Centre for Creative Arts is a multi-disciplinary
cultural hub in the School of Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The
Centre is renowned for presenting five of South Africa’s leading arts festivals
– the Time of the Writer festival (29 years), JOMBA! Contemporary Dance
Festival (28 years), Durban International film Festival (46 years), Poetry
Africa (30 years) and the Artfluence Human Rights Festival (5 years). The
Centre for Creative Arts is also host of the 5th World Slam Poetry Competition
which will present 40 slam poets from forty nations competing for the global
title in Durban during October 2026.
About The Curator:
Shafinaaz Hassim is an multi award-winning author and
sociologist. Her more than 18 titles have received international and local
acclaim. In 2014, she was listed by UNESCO as one of the top 39 writers in
Africa under the age of 40. Her novels have been commended by the SALA and
NIHSS awards and the UJ Prize for Creative Writing. She is also the author of
the five-book Nisa Qamar series for young adults, which has been shortlisted twice
for the Minara Aziz Hassim Literary Awards and the prestigious Sanlam Prize for
Youth Literature 2019. Her novel Darlings
of Durban received noteworthy accolade. Kimya
Writes is her latest series. Hassim presents a popular book review show
called BookBytes, show-casing cutting
edge writing from local and international authors. She brings her varied
industry expertise to the curation of Time of the Writer Festival.
The Centre for Creative Arts, is located at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal Howard College Campus, Mazisi Kunene Avenue.
Telephones: +27 (0)31 260 2506 / +27 (0)31 260 1816
Fax: +27 (0)31 260
3074
cca@ukzn.ac.za | www.cca.ukzn.ac.za
To link to the Centre
for Creative Arts website, click on the logo advert to the right of this
article.