Outriders Africa: Meet Amanda Thomson and Sabrina Mahfouz| Edinburgh International Book Festival

In 2017 the Edinburgh International Book Festival supported ten writers to travel on journeys across the Americas. This was Outriders – an ambitious exploration of the idea that in shifting, disorienting times, a writer can make a unique contribution to our understanding of the world, giving voice to untold stories and providing new insights on contemporary geopolitical contexts.

Outriders will again see ten writers explore a region of the world – this time in Africa. Each pair of writers will embark on an international journey through Africa, meeting writers and communities along their way and engaging in discussions around migration, colonial legacies, inequalities and the impact of globalisation and environmental change. Each of the ten Outriders will create a new work in response to their journey which will be presented at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2020.

In this video, meet one of our travelling pairs – poet, playwright and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Sabrina Mahfouz, and Amanda Thomson, a Scottish writer and visual artist who teaches at the Glasgow School of Art. Find out where they will travel to and what they hope to discover about the places they visit and themselves along the way.

Follow the Edinburgh International Book Festival (@edbookfest) on social media for updates about each of our Outriders journeys, and visit edbookfest.co.uk for more information.

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