Rwanda joins other African countries to celebrate International African Writer’s Day. The day was designated as November 7, the same day the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) was founded.
PAWA was formed following the Conference of African Ministers of Education and Culture, meeting in Cotonou, Benin in 1991. Since then, many activities have been held to celebrate this auspicious day.
The activities include conferences, readings, lectures, performances, visits, writing competitions and training, as well as honouring African writers.
This year’s theme ‘African Literature in the New Normal: Technology and Creative Writing’ sheds light on the need to use technology to promote creative writing and literature at large across the African continent.
Every year, International African Writer’s Day follows PAWA’s International Conference. It kicked off on November 5 in Djibouti.
Addressing the conference, John Rusimbi, President of PAWA and Rwanda’s Book Industry Federation said that African literature in the new normal adapts to the historical challenges of writing and publishing the African story.
"From print to digital publishing, the journey was explored exclusively by western elites and scholars until 1962 when pan African writers met at Makerere University to change the course of history. Since then many more writers in different genres emerged in all the African countries and publishing houses were also set up to meet the challenge," he said.
He added: "The digital divide has also emphasized more e-book publishing and marketing in Western countries and less in Africa. Nonetheless, Africa as a new market attracted investment in digital technology and publishing of the African story in the continent.”
Rusimbi recognises that the journey to digital publishing is not easy with poor internet network and lack of sufficient electricity supply and electronic equipment in most communities and that there are still a few publishing companies with insufficient capacity to harness book value chain players for quality production and marketing of African books, hence called for a durable solution to improve quality of books that tell African stories through creative writing and digital technology.
On the national level, the Rwandan Academy of Cultural Heritage (RCHA) organised activities related to the International African Writer’s Day from November 1. Those include conducting book conferences at different universities across the country in partnership with Rwanda’s Book Industry Federation.
The celebration of the day is expected to take place at the Rwanda Museum of Art in Kanombe, Kigali City.
According to the institution, it is a good opportunity for authors and writers to meet and reflect on their contribution to African society and the world at large and to promote themselves, as most of them are not well known yet they can easily inspire others.
The Rwanda Writers Federation in collaboration with the Pan African Movement Rwanda have also organized an event that will take place at Hilltop Hotel on Monday afternoon. The participants are set to discuss the topic "The Books as the Source of Knowledge-Based Economy”, among other activities.