18 Sep 2022

Gaborone Book Festival (GBF) organisers have been applauded for promoting literary works.

Officiating at a two-day festival in Gaborone on Thursday the director of the Botswana National Library Service, Jacob Sekgoni, said GBF was committed to inspiring the next generation of writers and thinkers.

He commended event co-founders; Kenanao and Keikantse Phele for promoting the reading culture in Botswana, adding their efforts were bearing fruits.

“I am informed that the Gaborone Book Festival also runs a School Outreach Programme which mainly targets low-income, highly populated, and hard-to-reach areas.

These are communities on the margins of our society, where parents, guardians and caretakers don’t have the financial means to buy books for children,” he said.

The director also said this assured communities that they would not be left behind in the pursuit of a literate and well-informed society

Sekgoni said the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture had introduced the literary heritage grant to offer financial support to writers and authors.

One of the co-founders Kenanao said they were delighted that they were already celebrating the GBF’s fifth anniversary and also thanked the government and other stakeholders for the support.

She also expressed delight over the festival’s fruitfulness, evidenced by achievements such as collaborating with other African authors to promote African literature.

Kenanao also said their success stories also included the inclusion of children especially in rural and disadvantaged areas.

She said during the festival people should expect poetry, master classes and more to enhance the skills.

They were also happy to have partnered with the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of East Anglia in England. ENDS