25 Aug 2022

Botswana’s literary platform, the annual Gaborone Book Festival (GBF) is expected to resume physically with a three-day programme penciled for September 15-17 at Maitisong.

The festival creates a platform for various stakeholders including readers, authors and publishers to interact, while at the same time engaging in literary discussions around mainly local writers and those in the African continent.

Due to COVID-19 movement restrictions, the last physical book festival was held in 2019, while the activities were online for the two subsequent years.

“For this year’s festival, we feature about five Setswana authors and another one who writes in Kalanga, as a way of promoting indigenous languages.

We also have two or three conversations that will be held in Setswana,” said GBF co-founder Keikantse Phele in an interview.

In addition, she said they were also introducing Setswana and English poetry as part of the book festival since they were intentional about promoting local languages.

The poetry will be incorporated as entertainment within the programme, but also as a showcase for the poets’ artistry.

Ms Phele further noted that plans were underway to organise a workshop on the publishing business, which was intended to capacitate stakeholders on the aspect of publishing.

As a platform aimed at promoting reading and writing across all age groups, Gaborone Book Festival has also collaborated with the University of East Anglia from the United Kingdom, as an implementing partner towards stimulating writing for children locally.

Gaborone Book Festival has been nominated among other African literary organisations for a series of creative writing activities across the continent.

“From the 80 applicants, a total of 21 were selected for the workshops held in Maun and Gaborone. The workshop series runs from June to September,” she said.

Furthermore, Phele said since inception five years ago, Gaborone Book Festival had reached out to over 68 000 pupils throughout the country, through their school outreach programme, including the Read Aloud Activations.

Their partnership with Master Card Foundations also saw a book donation worth P500 000 to 12 schools last year.

“As the government gears towards a knowledge-based economy, reading is essential and promotion of reading and writing among children and adults is core to our existence,” said Phele.  ENDS