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AFRICA AT THE FAIR How can Literary Festivals and Book Fairs promote African Books and Reading Monday 15 March 2004, 3.30pm-6pm at
the 2004 London Book Fair REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS This report has been prepared by SABDET from notes taken during the seminars. It is freely available for use, but please credit SABDET and cite Africa at the Fair, the SABDET seminar at the 2004 London Book Fair as the source of the material. For further information please contact: Paul Westlake, Director The Africa at the Fair seminar formed part of the Reading Africa initiative, devised by SABDET in partnership with the British Council and Book Aid International to raise awareness in the UK of African writing and publishing and to promote reading of African books. Reading Africa is inspired by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair's Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. The nationwide Reading Africa campaign, which is supported by the Arts Council of England, was formally launched at the close of the seminar. PROGRAMME
SEMINAR OBJECTIVES The aim of Africa at the Fair was to explore how the quality and diversity of African books and writing can enrich the programmes of book fairs and literary festivals. Between them, the speakers had a wide range of experience of bringing Africa to popular audiences at book fairs and festivals in the UK, Europe and Africa. They shared a common interest in achieving more exposure for African books and writers amongst the general reading public, more awareness and interest, and growing readership and sales. (For more information on the contributors, see the biographical notes at the end of the Report.) SESSION ONE: CHATSHOW WITH UK LITERARY FESTIVAL DIRECTORS Margaret Busby, in the chair, welcomed all participants to the seminar and invited members of the panel to make short opening statements. Adam Pushkin, Cheltenham Festival: The Cheltenham Festival of Literature began in 1949 when John Moore, a local writer, had the idea to match the existing music festival. It is believed to be the oldest literature festival in the world. Today, the main Festival runs for 10 days in October and comprises 300 events. There is a smaller Spring Festival over a weekend in April comprising 60 events. In 2003, the main Festival programme included 70 events for children, 35 writing workshops, films and exhibitions - and 8 events focusing on Africa. June Turner, Essex Book Festival: The Essex Book Festival is very new. It was started in 2000 and is now in its fifth edition. It is organised by Essex County Council with libraries and cultural services working together. The aim is to inspire, challenge and encourage readers to try something different. The programme runs for the whole of March throughout the county of Essex, and is multi-venue. The aim is something for everyone, and there are events in prisons, residential homes and a range of community venues. The 250 reading groups in Essex are a key part of the Festival. Once is it over, book displays continue in local libraries. Peter Florence, Hay Festival: The Hay Festival runs for 10 days in Hay-on-Wye, a small town in Wales, and comprises music, film and theatre as well as literature. The organising body also run Orange Word in London each autumn and festivals in the US, Majorca, Brazil and Italy. At the Hay Festival itself, the main emphasis on Africa to date has been through music rather than literature. An evening was organised at the Hackney Empire in London with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott which was claimed as a local rather than a literary event. Margaret Busby: Are there are particular difficulties in including Africa on programmes? Adam Pushkin: No. There has been a very positive reaction from audiences despite the fact that the writers are less well known. The Cheltenham audiences are inquisitive and want to try something new. The main problems come from the publishing industry who are much more conservative. It is very hard to find UK or European publishers for African writers other than the big names, much of the industry doesn't seem to want to know. June Turner: This year's Essex Book Festival is featuring Mia Couto (Mozambique) and José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) via the publisher Serpents Tail and with financial support from Arts Council England. These two writers have added a new dimension to the programme and are both very interesting. The Festival would welcome other opportunities to involve African writers. Peter Florence: The biggest problem is that we as organisers are largely unaware of which African writers will be available. There is a lack of promotion from the publishers. Those African writers based in US academia find the timing of the Hay Festival difficult. The British Council is a useful partner and the support of Arts Council England must also be applauded. We have been encouraging Rageh Omar, Michael Buerk and others to do introductions. But the lack of information from publishers is the main problem. We have never been approached by any African publisher - and would welcome approaches. We don't have the resources to find out for ourselves. Margaret Busby: What are the practical difficulties? June Turner: The Mia Couto approach came very late and had to be fitted into a nearly-finalised programme. Promotion of writers needs to start earlier, in July-August the year before the Festival. Margaret Busby: What scope is there for festivals to cooperate in bringing writers over? Adam Pushkin: No such organisation exists at present. There is scope for a body with respect to overseas writers in general. The Africa Centre have been very helpful and Cheltenham has hosted their African Writers Tour for the last three years. Margaret Busby: Will Reading Africa make a difference? Peter Florence: We have a degree of flexibility - we brought Paul Temba Nyathi (Zimbabwe) to Hay at four days notice. Hay is about debate, argument and conversation, so writers who have a political angle and can take part in political discussion and deal with the media do best. Most African writers have these qualities. It is helpful to visit other festivals and see what they do; Toronto is a spectacularly successful festival in a culturally very diverse city. Festivals in the UK tend to be sited in less culturally diverse locations; there is a need to make more connection with diversity. June Turner: We aim to have books read by reading groups and readers in advance of the Festival to prepare them for writers' visits. This is especially important where the writers are unfamiliar. It is much easier to build audiences when the readers have already become engaged with the writer. And after the Festival is over, book displays and other activities continue. Margaret Busby: How easy is it to promote a little known African writer? Peter Florence: Festivals can help get writers known, enable them to meet people and to make connections. All festivals uncover, recover and discover new voices and give them a wider context. The media love festivals because they are easy to cover. Margaret Busby: How has Cheltenham premiered new writers? Adam Pushkin: We have had a joint project with the Africa Centre. We sent UK writer Maggie Gee to Uganda where she did readings and wrote stories, while Ugandan writer Ayeta Anne Wangusa lived in Gloucestershire for a few weeks. New work from both writers was premiered at the 2003 Festival. It was a wonderful, spine-tingling experience, an opportunity to present completely new writing to the audience. Margaret Busby: Is there any value in highlighting a particular area of the world? Adam Pushkin: It does make a huge difference. For example in 2003 we had Clare Short talking about Africa to an audience of 600 people, and on the back of this we got people to come and listen to African literature as well. Their interest was sparked, and we got 150 to a late night African story-telling session, which made it fully viable. It's a model that we now want to follow. We will straddle thematic events over one or two days and push them hard. Margaret Busby: How has the Essex Festival website helped? June Turner: The website aims to overcome the limitations of library categorisation and present material in a new way. It allows for lots of reader content. We can place thoughts and recommendations on the site. We will set up the Reading Africa theme on the site and encourage reader recommendations of the books. Margaret Busby: Could Reading Africa open up any new directions? June Turner: Reading Africa forms part of the wider British Council Africa@21 project, under which Essex has been twinned with Sierra Leone. We are trying to link readers in these two regions and encourage contact and communication. Margaret Busby: Do you have any contact with festivals in Africa? Peter Florence: My family come from District Six in Cape Town, and we have been investigating the possibility of a literature festival there, but I don't think it's the right place. I can't remember when an African-based writer was on the Booker shortlist. There is a lack of coordination. There is a huge world that could be heavily promoted. Finance is needed to make a big push. It's a fault of our imagination. Travel writers from the UK get pushed; writers from the region itself do not. Europe does things better in this regard. Granta, the British Council and others all have a part to play. Questions and comments were invited from the floor. (Participants from the audience were not invited to introduce themselves. Names have been included where known.) Dirk Koehler, World Bank: 60 people in a festival audience is not enough to justify the investment of travel from Africa. How do you achieve leverage, reach out to the media, and convince commercial publishers? Adam Pushkin: It is correct that events are on a small scale but it is the same for new UK writers. Publishers need to realise that the investment in African writers is worthwhile. June Turner: You have to see a festival is part of a wider programme of building up audiences. The Essex Festival is part of a year-long programme. We carry out evaluation, using standard evaluation forms for all participants, and ask them if they are going to read the books. This is very important information for publishers. Peter Florence: There are three constituencies: the audience in the room at an event, the media, and fellow writers around the world. Writers who are not politically active, gregarious and funny are at a disadvantage; those who are can make the most of the cumulative effects. Adam Pushkin: We should not forget
the power of word-of-mouth marketing, those 60 people will tell Peter Florence: If writers are a success they will be invited back. It is not a short-term investment. Hazel Dakers, British Library: Can email be used to spread information about African writers? Peter Florence: We have a 48,000 email newsletter. We have to limit the number of items of information to readers' attention span - but this year we will be celebrating South Africa's 10th anniversary of democracy, for example. Margaret Busby invited Professor Ndjabulo Ndebele to comment. Ndjabulo Ndebele: I haven't been to any festivals recently, but was involved in the Africa's 100 Best Books project as a member of the jury. That list, which highlights the best of Africa to the world, has been circulating internationally and has inspired other projects. Festivals could also plan around the list, it would be a tremendous boost. It is beginning to pay off, although it has not yet been fully utilised, and also does not address the latest products - we need to focus on promoting new writing as well. Paul Westlake, SABDET: The Reading Africa list does include some new books published since the release of the Africa's 100 Best Books list. The campaign includes other programme elements besides library promotions, including participation in book fairs and literature festivals, and runs to the end of this year. James Tumusiime, Fountain Publishers, Uganda: How much contact has there been with African Books Collective? Adam Pushkin: African Books Collective has very little budget, unfortunately, and there is a practical issue of costs. They don't have the resources to promote the people they represent on the same scale as for example Penguin. Mary Jay, African Books Collective: It is true that we don't have the pull of the big trade publishers but we do have some budget. For example we joined with the Africa Centre on their African Visions tour. One problem is the chicken and egg one: writers are not well known enough. We have been trying with the Oxford Literature Festival, and have finally succeeded in getting an author on their programme after three years. The problem lies with perceptions, we have to convince festival organisers to give writers a chance. We need to work together to get writers into the cycle. Now that we have worked with Cheltenham and Oxford we hope to expand. Peter Florence: We promote about 400 writers each year, which is about one third of those who pitch - we have a vast rejection pile. We have never had a pitch from African Books Collective. If we find someone that we believe in passionately, we will make £2,500 budget available. We would love to be introduced to festivals in Africa to develop partnerships and reduce the level of our ignorance. Adam Pushkin: We brought Ayeta Wangusa over at the African Books Collective's instigation, for which we are grateful. We would like to work with them again. We got 1,200 people along to hear African writers, it's not all bad news. June Turner: We are keen to bring in new writers and would be delighted to work with African Books Collective. (End of session).
Margaret Busby in the chair. For this session, the three contributors on the panel made longer, more formal presentations, with time for questions and comments from the audience at the end. Birgitta Jacobsson Ekblom, Göteborg Book Fair: Göteborg is a city of 500,000 people on the west coast of Sweden. It is a town built on trade, with many international contacts with other cultures, which are important for the Book Fair. The Fair was started in 1985 by Bertil Falck as a 'library fair'. 5,000 visitors came, the publishers began to get interested, and it was changed to a 'book and library fair'. Now it has reached its 20th anniversary and attracts 100,000 visitors over four days. It is the largest meeting place for literature in the Nordic region. The visitors are diverse, with teachers and librarians the largest groups. It is a fair at which books are bought and sold. It is privately owned, completely independent, and has no government subsidies. The programme comprises three parts: the seminar programme, the exhibition, and the international rights centre. In 2003 the seminar programme comprised 540 seminars involving 840 authors and lecturers from 63 countries. Göteborg focuses on writers and writing as no other book fair does; it also features debates on human rights and other topics. There is extensive media coverage, with over 1,000 journalists attending. There are over 800 exhibitors, with several stages in the exhibition area with non-stop programmes. Overall, 1,500 writers and lecturers are involved and there are 2,200 events in total. The International Rights Centre is now an integral part of the Fair. The timing of Göteborg fits in well with Frankfurt, just 10 days later. The Göteborg Book Fair organisers work with 160 partner organisations, including SIDA, the Swedish Institute, and various UN agencies. We are part of the international network of book fair directors. Each year the Fair has a theme and a focus country. In 2003 it was Polish literature; for 2004 it will be British literature. Groups of authors are invited from Africa and other parts of the world. Andre Brink was the first writer from Africa invited, in 1986. Since then, African writers have featured every year, including Wole Soyinka in 1987 - he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature the previous year - and 1996, and Nadine Gordimer in 1989 - she went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1991. Overall, more than 40 African writers have been invited. They include several of the writers featured in the Reading Africa programme, including Nawal el Saadawi, Moses Isegawa and Yvonne Vera. The lack of interest in African writers didn't make us give up. We have collaborated with a number of small publishers, SIDA and the Swedish Institute to bring them to Göteborg. Today, interest in African and world literature has increased. There has been a change over the years and unknown African writers now attract audiences. Famous writers are invited to Göteborg, but we also feel it is important to invite the young unknowns and those who have not yet been translated into Swedish - and in some cases these have become well known later. A recent article on African literature in a local newspaper was headlined 'Africa has meant many voices' - all the writers mentioned had been to Göteborg. Such an article would never have been written without the Book Fair. Dana Kalinova, Bookworld Prague: This year marks the 10th anniversary of Bookworld Prague. We have 600 exhibitors and 26,000 visitors. We have wonderful memories of 2003, when the whole continent of Africa was the guest of honour. Many translations of African literature were published that year and a number of institutions published anthologies. The publishers became involved before the Fair, so that by the time it happened there were many African books to display. We wanted to show Africa as an entire continent, and had a very ambitious programme. We collaborated with various Czech institutions and experts to organise over 400 Africa-related programmes during the Fair. The Czech ambassadors in Africa made significant contributions and enabled us to disseminate information about Bookworld Prague within Africa. The cooperation of the African Publishers Network APNET and African Books Collective was very helpful. In 2002 I took part in the Cape Town conference [at which the awards for the list of Africa's 100 Best Books were presented] and attended the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, so I was able to acquaint myself with African issues. With the support of the Czech Committee of UNESCO, we were able to make 100 square metres of exhibition space at Bookworld Prague 2003 available for African publishers free of charge. The Prince Claus Fund brought writers, and, the high point of the Fair, the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa was awarded in Prague. The participation of African writers and publishers was advertised to Czech publishers in advance. The 100 Best Books was an excellent marketing tool - one Czech publisher decided to publish all 12 of the top 12 titles, a project which is still ongoing. Many translations were announced during the Fair, and all the authors present had Czech translations available, including Mia Couto and Niyi Osundare. Other publications included an anthology on African fashion. There was a link with the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and its literature across borders project. The theme of Bookworld Prague 2003 was 'dialogue between continents' and a thematic conference was held during the Fair involving European and African experts in a celebration of African literature and the multicultural diversity of the African continent. Alongside, there was a film festival entitled 'Book on the Screen' which included films on Africa. Large audiences were attracted to the Africa programme including students specialising in African languages. Professors from the University were involved as consultants. The institutions involved included the museum - which has a big collection of African art - the Czech Institute of Egyptology, the Czech Arabian Society and the Friends of Africa Society. Overall it was a successful programme and the contacts that were established have been maintained, as have the sales of African translations. Sam Matsangaise, Zimbabwe International Book Fair: The ZIBF is now in its 21st year. Since 1992 it has been run by an independent trust owned by various stakeholders including publishers, librarians, writers and a number of international trustees. It is a pan-African Fair, whose aim is to promote African book development. It runs over seven days, starting with an international conference whose purpose is to share African and international experience - it's called an Indaba, or 'meeting'. There is a Live Literature Centre with performances by local and international artistes, which attracts huge crowds. In 2003 we had 185 exhibitors, mostly from Africa, and 22,000 visitors. This compared with 70 exhibitors and 17,000 visitors in 2002. 2004 is looking better than 2003. Each year we have a theme and a country of focus - for 2003 it was Nigeria. For 2004 we have decided not to have a particular country but to have the African diaspora as the focus, and our theme is 'Voices: Dialogue Across Nations'. Dialogue is desperately needed in Zimbabwe today. The Indaba is structured around plenaries on the first day, and special interest groups on the second. This year we are launching a womens' writing and publishing special interest group. As regards the promotion of African literature, we are so happy to hear the Africa's 100 Best Books mentioned all the time. The project is doing what it is supposed to do, and it is stimulating African publishing by promoting sales. Our new projects include two prizes which we announced in 2003. The first is the ZIBF Award for Lifelong Contribution to the African Book Industry. This is open to nominations from all over the world. Its aim is to motivate the publishing industry by providing something to aspire to. It will be awarded at ZIBF2004. The second is the ZIBF Africa Award for the Best Book of the Year. This will be awarded for the first time in 2005 for the best book published in Africa during the previous year. The aim is to stimulate and support African publishing. Each of the two awards is worth US$5,000. Another new project is to select the 50 Best Books written by African women. A jury is now being assembled for this and the results will be announced at ZIBF2005. There are only 17 women writers in the Africa's 100 Best Books list. This project will work in a similar way but with the focus on African women. During 2005 we plan to extend our library development programmes into the SADC region, using the funds we gained from winning the Prince Claus Award. We run local and regional fairs in Bulawayo, Mutare and other Zimbabwean cities, and invite the libraries to apply for awards which are then used to buy books. We run a librarians' skills-sharing workshop linked to this project, and we aim to include more regional and international participants this year. Zimbabwe's 75 Best Books, a British Council-supported project, will be announced during ZIBF2004. The ZIBF has been enormously affected by events in Zimbabwe but we are managing to retain and build African participation. How safe is it to come to Zimbabwe? I will let a Cameroonian based in the US answer that - he said that he felt safer in Harare than he did in Cameroon. Our programmes have not been interfered with politically, but the 2003 Fair was very difficult to organise because of the shortages of everything from fuel to bank notes. For 2004 there look to be no major shortages and it should be easier. But politically the situation is completely stagnant, and this is an area where we have no influence at all. Questions and comments were invited from the floor. Pat Haward: How do European book fairs find out who to invite? Birgitta Ekblom: We work with 160 partners. The publishing houses are very important and so are organisations such as the British Council, the Swedish Institute, SIDA and UN agencies. The contacts that they give us are very important. We meet the Swedish publishing houses almost a year before the Book Fair to learn which authors they are planning to promote and publish. Dana Kalinova: We got a list of names from ZIBF2002, and we also felt a responsibility to promote Africa's 100 Best Books. We invited writers who we knew would be published in the Czech Republic - Tsitsi Dangarembga was the only writer not published. The sale of African books at the Book Fair was quite good as the presentations were linked to the availability of published texts. Paul Westlake, SABDET: Is Bookworld Prague planning a continuing commitment to Africa? Dana Kalinova: We will offer free stands again to APNET to enable them to follow up, though not on such a large scale. We would like to invite more African writers, it depends on cooperation with publishers. We welcome new projects such as the 50 Best Books by African women and Reading Africa. The dates of Bookworld Prague 2004 are 6-9 May and Ireland, Scotland and Wales are guests of honour. Question: Do you have links with British book fairs? Dana Kalinova: Our company is owned by the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers and we also have collective exhibits at other book fairs and promote Czech writers abroad. Birgitta Ekblom: We have no specific link with any British organisation but we exhibit at the London Book Fair, Warsaw - and, we hope, Prague. And we are part of the informal network of international book fair directors. Sam Matsangaise: We have a scheme of exchange stands with other book fairs. This is well established within Africa. We attended Göteborg last year and we also go to Frankfurt. We used to have space at the LBF and we hope to revive this. We go to many other book fairs to market ourselves. We need to have the participation of Western publishers to generate business, otherwise the Fair becomes very difficult commercially. James Currey: I would like to congratulate Göteborg and Prague on their achievements, which make a remarkable contrast to British book fairs. Their initiatives are very cheering. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS MARGARET BUSBY Writer, editor and broadcaster Margaret Busby (Nana Akua Ackon) was born in Ghana, West Africa, and was educated in Britain. On graduating from London University she co-founded the publishing house Allison & Busby Ltd, of which she was editorial director for 20 years. She was subsequently also editorial director of Earthscan Publications. The recipient of several awards, she is the editor of Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writing by Women of African Descent, and also wrote the recent musical drama Yaa Asantewaa – Warrior Queen. She contributes widely to many national and international publications, is a regular broadcaster, has been a consultant and on the boards of various notable organizations, and has served as a judge for many literary competitions. Most recently, she delivered the Bath Literature Festival Lecture 2004, speaking in the theme of Identity and Influence. BIRGITTA JACOBSSON EKBLOM Birgitta Jacobsson Ekblom has been public relations manager for the Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden since 2000. She previously worked for the Göteborg City Board, with international exchange programmes for young artists and for the Refugee Cities network. The Göteborg Book Fair, held each autumn, is the main meeting place for the book and library trades of the Nordic countries. The first Fair was held in 1985 and now attracts over 700 exhibitors and 100,000 visitors each year. It is open both to the public and the trade, and the two largest groups of visitors are teachers and librarians. Besides a trade fair and an international rights centre, it offers a comprehensive conference programme of over 500 seminars with speakers from all over the world, and many more events taking place within the fair itself and on the exhibit stands. The Literature Nobel Prize winners who have taken part in the Fair include Wole Soyinka, Nigeria, and Nadine Gordimer, South Africa. At the 2004 Fair, 23-26 September, the focus will be on British literature. PETER FLORENCE Peter Florence is director and co-founder of the Hay Festival of Literature, held each summer in Hay-on-Wye, a small market town of 1,300 people in the Brecon Beacons national park, Wales. During festival week, it hosts 80,000 visitors from all over the world for an informal, participatory programme of art, literature and entertainment. The Hay Festival was started in 1988 by a small group of local people led by Norman and Peter Florence. Their theatre company had toured the world for the British Council and played lots of Festivals, and they thought - Festivals are wonderful, let's have one at home. The Hay Festival runs a number of other events including the Glamlit live literature event for teenagers in Pontypridd. DANA KALINOVA Dana Kalinova is the managing director of Bookworld Prague in the Czech Republic, organised by the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers and its production company Svet Knihy Ltd. The first day of the fair is reserved for trade professionals and the press, after which it is open to the general reading public. The programme includes professional seminars and conferences, meetings with writers, author readings, presentations by publishers, and awards ceremonies for outstanding publishing and creative achievements. The fair is held in the Industrial Palace at the Prague exhibition grounds, an art nouveau palace built for the Provincial Jubilee Exhibition of 1891. The 10th Bookworld will be held from 6-9 May 2004 with a special focus on Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and the theme Literature as a source of inspiration. SAM MATSANGAISE Sam Matsangaise is the director of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF). He was previously deputy head of the publications programme of the Technical Centre for Agricultural & Rural Co-operation (CTA) at Wageningen, Netherlands, and managing director of University of Zimbabwe Publications. The ZIBF is held every year in Harare in the first week of August. Started in 1983, soon after Zimbabwe's independence, the ZIBF grew during the 1990s into Africa's largest and most significant book trade event south of the Sahara. It combines a trade fair with a literature and reading promotion festival, and also has a strong developmental objective in support of the growth of indigenous African publishing. In 2000, it launched the Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century initiative, the inspiration for SABDET's Reading Africa campaign. ADAM PUSHKIN Adam Pushkin is the organiser of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, working alongside the Artistic Director for 2004, Christopher Cook. He has been at the Festival for just under three years, following a spell in his native Birmingham working on a variety of arts festivals. Before that, he was a student union officer in Sheffield. Cheltenham Festival of Literature is believed to be the world's oldest, having started in 1949. It now welcomes over five hundred authors to over four hundred events each year, with a total audience in excess of 70,000. October 2003 saw a special celebration of African writing and culture at the festival, with eight events that focused on the continent and were attended by over 1,200 people. JUNE TURNER June Turner is reader development manager for Essex Libraries and co-organiser of the Essex Book Festival since the first festival in March 2000. The Essex Book Festival is the biggest book festival in the Eastern region with a growing national reputation for the range and diversity of the programming, from best-selling authors to writers in translation and up and coming authors. It is a partnership project led by Essex County Council, Reader Development and Literature Development ,with Essex District and Borough Councils and Southend and Thurrock Unitary Councils. Taking place every March, this year there are 57 events right across the county, many in libraries but also theatres, halls, prisons, residential homes and Adult Community Colleges. The festival is the highlight of a continuous programme of events and activities aimed at encouraging readers to try something different. WANGUI WA GORO Wangui wa Goro is a social critic, writer, academic/researcher and translator, and a member of the judges' panel for the Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century initiative. Her recent works include the translation of Veronique Tadjo's As a Crow Flies. She has also translated Ngugi wa Thiong'o's book Matigari and his children's books in the Njamba Nene series. She currently teaches English and Comparative studies at Goldsmith's College, University of London, and is an executive member of the African Literature Association. She has sat on the translation advisory committees of the Arts Council and works closely with the British Centre for Literary Translation. She has contributed to debates and conferences world wide, including at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, and is active on human rights, women and gender issues.
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