The Book Club XL

Black Joy as Radical Practice

Joy is often imagined as a reward that comes after struggle. But what if joy can be part of the struggle itself, as a strategy for survival and a refusal of a flattened militancy?

The Book Club XL returns to De Nieuwe Liefde to explore what futures become possible when we embrace a full emotional spectrum in social justice activism. We ask: how do we protect our joy, and make sure the next generation grows up knowing it’s theirs too?

Thinking with Black artists and organisers, we treat joy as serious political work. Through books, film and lived experience, we’ll explore how pleasure, play, storytelling, and community-making become tools of resistance in times of crisis.
The following books will lead us through these conversations. As always with the Book Club, you don’t have to read them:

• Black Joy by Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
• Manorism by Yomi Sode
• White Innocence by Gloria Wekker
• Joyful Militancy by Carla bergman and Nick Montgomery
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Participants

Yomi Ṣode

Yomi Ṣode is an award-winning Nigerian-British writer and poet, recipient of the 2019 Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship and shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2021), Arts Foundation Awards (2024), and Malorie Blackman Impact Award (2025). Founder of BoxedIn and 12 in 12, his poetry collection Manorism was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and the Rathbone Folio Prize. His debut novel, The Interpreter will be published by Viking.

Rafik Opti

Rafik Opti is an Amsterdam-based multidisciplinary filmmaker and archivist. Their practice operates at the intersection of image-making and solidarity. Opti uses film as a site of healing and political expression, drawing on the visual language of protest to confront power and imagine liberation. Their documentary Black Joy (Blaka Koloku) received the People’s Choice Award at the Black Trans Short Film Festival.

Priscilla Vaudelle

Priscilla Vaudelle (1982) is a theatre maker, theatre educator, and founder of the multidisciplinary storytelling collective LostProject. Her work amplifies voices and stories rarely seen on stage, blending fast-paced montage, music, spoken word, rap, and dance into powerful performances on themes such as identity, sexuality, social pressure, and upbringing. She has created acclaimed productions with Frascati Producties, MusicalMakers, LostProject, and Theater Oostpool.

Diana Dzhabbar

Diana Dzhabbar is an Afro-Ukrainian multi-instrumentalist based in Amsterdam. Known for her immersive soundscapes, Dzhabbar transforms her instruments into sonic chameleons. She will be joining us with her saxophone, blessing us with a rich blend of expressive horn lines and an array of effects that span from ambient textures to gritty, electronic-infused sounds.

Kriticos

Kriticos is Creator and main host of the Book Club; Kriticos is of Zambian and Tanzanian descent and has been based in Belgium most of his life. He loves discussions about love, spirituality and especially loves questioning the status quo and the systems put in place in today’s society.