The East African Indian Ocean coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections. This talk by Annachiara Raia (Leiden University) unravels how print mediates unique forms of connection and archives of intellectual history in the region, focusing on the aesthetics, content, and circulation of portable Swahili-language booklets (and related media) popular from the 1930s onward. Cheaply printed in India and sold almost for free along the Indian Ocean coast, these small books played a crucial role in negotiating new ways of being Muslim in the modern world.

Lecture will be followed by a Q&A.

Part of the 2024-25 lecture series Moving Books supported by DFG-GRK Literatur- und Wissensgeschichte kleiner Formen.