The
fifth edition of the popular Garden City Literary Festival, GCLF begins
tomorrow in the capital city of Rivers State, Port Harcourt. Koko Kalango, the main
force behind the birth and nurturing of the festival in an online chat with ANOTE
AJELUOROU
throws light on what to expect in the weeklong festival
GCLF
starts tomorrow. How prepared is Port Harcourt city for the festival? How would
you describe the build-up to this moment?
We have been working night and day to
ensure we deliver a great Garden City Literary Festival 2012. This year’s
outing is special for several reasons: This is our 5th litfest; this
year we are looking at a very topical subject, Women in Literature, and this
year our beloved city of Port Harcourt was nominated UNESCO World Book Capital
2014!
On this occasion we are also presenting
our book; Nigerian Literature, a Coat of Many Colours, which is a
Coffee Table book of 50 prominent Nigerian authors and their works. We are
grateful that the foreward to this book is written by no less than President
Jonathan and the introduction by our infatigable literary connoissuer, Governor
Rotimi Amaechi. We hope this work will be an invaluable contribution to
Nigeria’s literary heritage, as is this festival.
Could
you remind those intending participants of the festival the literary figures
expected to attend and their specific significance to the proposed festival
theme?
The writers of the city such as Chief
Elechi Amadi and Pa Gabriel Okara would be joining us to welcome their
counterparts from around Nigeria and even abroad. Elechi Amadi would be taking
a Master Class at the Festival and we round off with a special Jazz and Poetry
Evening where Pa Gabriel Okara will be Guest of honour. This year our keynote
address will be delivered by Veronique Tadjo, the Ivorian scholar and
playwright. Other writers attending include the Ugandan author and Caine Prize
winner Doreen Baigana and from Nigeria we have two of our bright upcoming
authors; Chibundu Onuzo, author of The Spider King’s Daughter, and Noo
Saro-wiwa, author of Looking for Transwonderland:
Travels in Nigeria.
Apart
from the usual workshops, seminars, what other ingredients make this year’s
festival different from past editions?
This year we have a special session on
the morning of Thursday 18 Oct at the Hotel Presidential where we would be
formally presenting PH to the world as UNESCO World Book City for 2014. Nobel
Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka will be delivering the keynote address on that
occasion. He would be talking on our theme for 2014 which is ‘Books – Window to
our World of Possibilities’. We have invited the UNESCO Director General, Ms
Irina Bokova, as Guest of Honour. Our host is His Excellency Governor Chibuike
Amaechi of Rivers State.
We are also coming out with a historic
book on Nigerian authors, which would be publicly presented on this occasion.
As
always, we have workshops in fiction, non-fiction, poetry. We have more
workshops for children. A child author, Polly Alakija who has written for
Macmillan International will be here to take the children in writing workshops.
As you know children have always been an integral part of our festival. This
year we are also featuring a dance drama called Evil Blade that speaks
up against female genital mutilation. This is in line with our general focus on
women. It is written by the late Amatu Braide of the University of Port
Harcourt. Indeed GCLF 2012 year promises to be exciting!
What
informed the theme for this year’s festival? What do you expect participants to
take away from the theme?
The theme for this year was
actually suggested by Governor Amaechi at the opening ceremony last year. Under
this year’s topic – Women in
Literature, we would be looking at areas such as women who are involved in
the literary world. This includes writers, publishers, agents,
promoters, academics and critics. Women working in this field have raised the
profile of women by their works. In the African context, where females are
often considered second-class citizens, the achievements of these women are
particularly laudable because they have successfully broken through the bonds
of traditional constraint. While
African literature is still largely male-dominated, there are some outstanding
female voices, some of which will be joining us in PH this week.
The
second way in which to consider our theme is the portrayal of women in
literature. Here we would look at the traditional
perspective when men were the main source of writing and women were often
categorised into stereotypical, often one-dimensional roles - the wife, the mother, the virgin, the
harlot. Rarely were we given a rounded view of the multi-faceted beings that
women are and rarely did they capture all the suffering, endurance and
fortitude of the African woman. Here, we would look at how things have changed
over the years and how we now get a real interpretation of the female
experience through the writings of women.
Then
thirdly we would also look at What Women Write about. We would be asking questions such as does
being a female writer mean one must cover ‘female’ issues? While it is good that women write
about issues that are typically experienced by women such as domestic violence
and motherhood, women are equally affected by world issues like the economy,
environmental change, politics and war and the writer’s role as a social
commentator means female writers should give their perspectives on what goes on
around them. Successful examples of this include Aminatta Forna’s reflections
on war and Chimamanda Adichie’s latest collection of short stories, The
Thing Around Your Neck, which covers a wealth of topics.
Nice
work, Rainbow Book Club winning the UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 for Port
Harcourt! What plans are there to make this win impact the book life of Port
Harcourt citizens?
Port Harcourt being the World Book
Capital 2014 is sure to transform the book life of the citizens. For a year
from 23 April 2014 we will run several programmes promoting books and reading.
Libraries and book clubs will be set up to provide more access to books and
more opportunities for discussion around books. Writers will converge monthly
for readings, etc. We expect a spiral effect on the book industry, as there
should emerge more bookshops, publishing houses, libraries and a heightened
interest in reading. We expect that year to be a complimentary effort to the
initiatives in education that this administration has set in place so that
citizenry of PH will be transformed into a reading population.
Would
participants get a glimpse of the World Book Capital from the festival this
year? Are there specific programmes to herald it?
Indeed they will. We have a stand at
our book fair where we would give out information and we can answer questions.
As we have said, the Thursday morning session at the Hotel Presidential is
dedicated to the PH WBCC nomination announcement. Those wishing to learn more
may also visit our website (portharcourtworldbookcapital.org).
Clearly,
Rivers State deserves to be book capital in Nigeria with the support government
has given to the festival. Rivers State government has done well, has it?
The literature friendly Governor
of Rivers State has certainly created an enabling environment for literary
expression. The Garden City Literary Festival is actually the idea of Governor
Chibuike Amaechi. When the Governor came into office in 2008 he called me and
gave me this assignment. The Governor also takes time out on Children’s Day
(which happens to be his birthday) every year to read to children in a public
school. As you are probably aware,
education is a key area that this administration is concentrating on, this
indeed makes our work easier.
Last
year, governor Amaechi mulled over how to make the festival self-sustaining
even beyond his tenure in government. Just how has the self-sustaining drive
gone?
Indeed from the very beginning the
Governor expressed his desire for the festival to be institutionalised and I
can tell you that that process is almost complete. Before GCLF 2013, by God’s
grace, the festival will be fully institutionalised.
Any
other issues you might want to address…
I
would like to say that the nomination of PH as UNESCO World Book Capital is a
victory not just for Port Harcourt or Nigeria but for the continent of Africa
as we are the first city in Africa to win by public bid.
We have won because of the ‘labours of
our heroes past’. The great authors Nigeria has produced, the works of the
various literary groups, the efforts of other players in the book industry
(publishers, booksellers, scholars) all added to help us win this nomination
and we are grateful to them all. We would all need to work together to ensure
PH World Book Capital is the greatest UNESCO has had and will ever have!
No comments:
Post a Comment