Musa Okwonga in Conversation with Tayo Popoola

Monday 1 November 2021

We’re feeling incredibly fortunate to be welcoming Musa Okwonga for what promises to be an unmissable discussion with Tayo Popoola.

 

Tickets for this in-person event are very limited, so please ensure you book very soon if you’d like to join us!

IN THE END, IT WAS ALL ABOUT LOVE

The narrator arrives in Berlin, a place famed for its hedonism, to find peace and maybe love; only to discover that the problems which have long haunted him have arrived there too, and are more present than ever. As he approaches his fortieth birthday, nearing the age where his father was killed in a brutal revolution, he drifts through this endlessly addictive and sometimes mystical city, through its slow days and bottomless nights, wondering whether he will ever escape the damage left by his father’s death. With the world as a whole more uncertain, as both the far-right and global temperatures rise at frightening speed, he finds himself fighting a fierce inner battle against his turbulent past, for a future free of his fear of failure, of persecution, and of intimacy.

IN THE END, IT WAS ALL ABOUT LOVE is a journey of loss and self-acceptance that takes its nameless narrator all the way through bustling Berlin to his roots, a quiet village on the Uganda-Sudan border. It is a bracingly honest story of love, sexuality and spirituality, of racism, dating, and alienation; of fleeing the greatest possible pain, and of the hopeful road home.

Musa Okwonga is a writer, broadcaster and musician. The co-host of the Stadio football podcast, he has published one collection of poetry and three books about football, the first of which, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His work has appeared in various outlets, including Africa Is A Country, Byline Times, Foreign Policy, Guardian, The New York Times, The Economist and The Ringer.  One of Them: An Eton College Memoir was published this spring by Unbound, and In The End, It Was All About Love was longlisted for The Gordon Burn Prize. He lives in Berlin.

Tayo Popoola is an award winning audio producer, presenter, DJ  and podcaster. He makes documentaries for  BBC from music to politics, and most recently, the narrative football podcast GIANT for Spotify. He also co-hosts the Arsenal podcast The Tuesday Club.

Please note that this event will be recorded, and will be available to watch via YouTube at a later date.

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