Forget the English: Literary festivals are ‘safe spaces’ for ideas on African literature
“Book festivals on the African continent are so important because they provide a space for African writers where they don’t have to explain themselves. We understand each other and the kind of difficulties we face in our respective regions. For a real conversation to happen about art and literature and life you have to be in a space where you feel safe and accepted.”
This insight by South African author and artist Shubnum Khan summarised her unequivocal praise for the Macondo Literary Festival and on the necessity of holding such events on the continent. She is the author of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years. The book has received outstanding reviews from The New York Times and the Daily Mail, among others.
At the three-day Macondo event, over 1,000 local and international attendees gathered, presenting the opportunity to ask African authors how they felt about attending literary events on the African continent.
Deep conversations, such as the ones that Khan felt took place on and off the Macondo stages, are essential, she said. “These book festivals are where we can have the kind of real conversations that need to happen to understand our identity and our spaces in the world. We share colonial histories and ones that are very unique to Africa. Writers and readers need to know that we can have the kind of conversations that we want to have and not necessarily from a Western gaze.”
No history of domination
It was Malagasy author Johary Ravaloson’s first time in Kenya but like Khan, he felt comfortable if, as a Francophone, a little tired at the end of an English-speaking day. “We are authors from Africa. There is no history of domination; it is sympathy that brings us together.”
Ravaloson’s sixth novel was published this year in French, but at Macondo he was presenting his second novel translated into English by Allison Charette, Return to the Enchanted Island. “I never imagined travelling to Kenya to talk about a book I wrote a long time ago and to have the pleasure of sharing the book with you and sharing in this experience,” he told the audience.
While at Macondo, he met with a Malagasy reader who lives in Nairobi. Anja Bengelstorff, Macondo’s co-founder with Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, said that two years ago, when Malagasy author Naivoharisoa Patrick Ramamonjisoa (pen name Naivo), came to Macondo, she discovered there was a Malagasy community in Nairobi, testament to the city’s diversity.
Kenyan author Buke Abduba, whose work is included in the recently published East African anthology, Let us Conspire and Other Stories reminded Macondo festival attendees how culturally diverse Kenya is, and that “trying to fit into the mainstream means you lose sight of your own culture. Literature is something that reflects our society and should have diverse voices. Writers focus on their own personal identities. I want to present an identity that might not be familiar to people. Cultures and traditions make up who we are, and I am not who I am without the traditions that I was raised with.”
This cultural diversity was also evident in the personal stories recounted by Asian authors such as Shubnum Khan, or MG Vassanji, who feels he has come home when he travels to Tanzania from Canada, or the Canadian author Janika Oza, who has an Indo-African background. At Macondo, Oza said, echoing Khan, she didn’t have to explain herself. And sometimes, East Africans can explain their diversity to one another—Bengelstorff said she was particularly moved when a woman in the audience from Murang’a County, after listening to Vassanji describe Dar es Salaam as home, said she would broaden her idea of how she thought of Kenyans to include the Indian shopkeepers she knows.
Algerian author Hamza Koudri was in Nairobi for the first time, with his debut novel Sand Roses. He had just come from the Open Book Festival in Cape Town and said he was impressed by both African festivals. “I feel African and make it a point of reminding people. I felt celebrated as an author and as an African.”
Festivals on the continent are a chance “for Africa to embrace its identity and for writers and readers to connect to each other. Our stories need to be told and our identities are not just colonial.”
Safe spaces
Literary festivals in Africa “couldn’t be more important because that’s where writers get exposure and that’s where editors and publishers come,” said Somali Canadian journalist and author Hassan Ghedi Santur, currently based in Nairobi.
“When you have a dearth of literary festivals going on, that’s when editors will come outside of their comfort zones. It’s vital that we have that for us and on a cultural level, where people are engaging with writers and editors and ideas.”
Bengelstorff said that from the start, she and Owuor had wanted to create a safe space for authors and to help people realise “that African literature is not just literature written in English… We want to accommodate people interested in ideas, to talk about what’s behind a book, what a book is trying to convey…”
The engagement on the part of the audience was evident to a number of writers invited to Macondo, and Khan summed it up by saying that questions from the audience had been “very thoughtful and stimulating; people are thinking deeply about identity, belonging, and history. I feel so inspired after the three days, and I learned so much… Everyone came with an open heart.”
Forget the English: Literary festivals are ‘safe spaces’ for ideas on African literature
“Book festivals on the African continent are so important because they provide a space for African writers where they don’t have to explain themselves. We understand each other and the kind of difficulties we face in our respective regions. For a real conversation to happen about art and literature and life you have to be in a space where you feel safe and accepted.”
This insight by South African author and artist Shubnum Khan summarised her unequivocal praise for the Macondo Literary Festival and on the necessity of holding such events on the continent. She is the author of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years. The book has received outstanding reviews from The New York Times and the Daily Mail, among others.
At the three-day Macondo event, over 1,000 local and international attendees gathered, presenting the opportunity to ask African authors how they felt about attending literary events on the African continent.
Deep conversations, such as the ones that Khan felt took place on and off the Macondo stages, are essential, she said. “These book festivals are where we can have the kind of real conversations that need to happen to understand our identity and our spaces in the world. We share colonial histories and ones that are very unique to Africa. Writers and readers need to know that we can have the kind of conversations that we want to have and not necessarily from a Western gaze.”
No history of domination
It was Malagasy author Johary Ravaloson’s first time in Kenya but like Khan, he felt comfortable if, as a Francophone, a little tired at the end of an English-speaking day. “We are authors from Africa. There is no history of domination; it is sympathy that brings us together.”
Ravaloson’s sixth novel was published this year in French, but at Macondo he was presenting his second novel translated into English by Allison Charette, Return to the Enchanted Island. “I never imagined travelling to Kenya to talk about a book I wrote a long time ago and to have the pleasure of sharing the book with you and sharing in this experience,” he told the audience.
While at Macondo, he met with a Malagasy reader who lives in Nairobi. Anja Bengelstorff, Macondo’s co-founder with Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, said that two years ago, when Malagasy author Naivoharisoa Patrick Ramamonjisoa (pen name Naivo), came to Macondo, she discovered there was a Malagasy community in Nairobi, testament to the city’s diversity.
Kenyan author Buke Abduba, whose work is included in the recently published East African anthology, Let us Conspire and Other Stories reminded Macondo festival attendees how culturally diverse Kenya is, and that “trying to fit into the mainstream means you lose sight of your own culture. Literature is something that reflects our society and should have diverse voices. Writers focus on their own personal identities. I want to present an identity that might not be familiar to people. Cultures and traditions make up who we are, and I am not who I am without the traditions that I was raised with.”
This cultural diversity was also evident in the personal stories recounted by Asian authors such as Shubnum Khan, or MG Vassanji, who feels he has come home when he travels to Tanzania from Canada, or the Canadian author Janika Oza, who has an Indo-African background. At Macondo, Oza said, echoing Khan, she didn’t have to explain herself. And sometimes, East Africans can explain their diversity to one another—Bengelstorff said she was particularly moved when a woman in the audience from Murang’a County, after listening to Vassanji describe Dar es Salaam as home, said she would broaden her idea of how she thought of Kenyans to include the Indian shopkeepers she knows.
Algerian author Hamza Koudri was in Nairobi for the first time, with his debut novel Sand Roses. He had just come from the Open Book Festival in Cape Town and said he was impressed by both African festivals. “I feel African and make it a point of reminding people. I felt celebrated as an author and as an African.”
Festivals on the continent are a chance “for Africa to embrace its identity and for writers and readers to connect to each other. Our stories need to be told and our identities are not just colonial.”
Safe spaces
Literary festivals in Africa “couldn’t be more important because that’s where writers get exposure and that’s where editors and publishers come,” said Somali Canadian journalist and author Hassan Ghedi Santur, currently based in Nairobi.
“When you have a dearth of literary festivals going on, that’s when editors will come outside of their comfort zones. It’s vital that we have that for us and on a cultural level, where people are engaging with writers and editors and ideas.”
Bengelstorff said that from the start, she and Owuor had wanted to create a safe space for authors and to help people realise “that African literature is not just literature written in English… We want to accommodate people interested in ideas, to talk about what’s behind a book, what a book is trying to convey…”
The engagement on the part of the audience was evident to a number of writers invited to Macondo, and Khan summed it up by saying that questions from the audience had been “very thoughtful and stimulating; people are thinking deeply about identity, belonging, and history. I feel so inspired after the three days, and I learned so much… Everyone came with an open heart.”
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