The author of Roots in The Sky, will speak on “The Pitfalls of Memory from Hope to Despair and Reckoning”, which is his interpretation of the main theme of the festival, Breakout: Hope Is A Stubborn Thing…
The keynote will focus on Wọle Ṣoyinka’s Nobel lecture, “This Past Must Address Its Present” and the 2003 documentary film, “The Return of Sara Baartman” (by South African director Zola Maseko)… and will engage with the main thematic concerns that unify the 12 main books of the Festival
AWARD-winning novelist, Akin Adesokan, will deliver the keynote address at the colloquium of the 26th Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF 2024, on Friday, November 15.
The author of Roots in The Sky, will speak on “The Pitfalls of Memory from Hope to Despair and Reckoning”, which is his interpretation of the main theme of the festival, Breakout: Hope Is A Stubborn Thing.
The keynote will focus on Wọle Ṣoyinka’s Nobel lecture, “This Past Must Address Its Present” and the 2003 documentary film, “The Return of Sara Baartman” (by South African director Zola Maseko) about the repatriation of the remains of Sara Baartman, so-called “Hottentot Venus,” to South Africa in 1998.
Adesokan’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on Reclaiming the Moment, featuring reviews and conversations around Ayi Kwei Armah’s wat nt shemsw: The Way of Companions and Mark Manson: Everything F*cked: A Book about Hope. To be moderated by Ifeanyi Uddin, banker and columnist at Premium Times, the panel will also have Deji Toye, a poet and lawyer and Dipo Ogunbiyi, an investment banker as reviewers and discussants. It will be chaired by Kunle Ajibade, the activist journalist, author of Jailed for Life, who delivered the Festival keynote in 2021.
A professor of Comparative Literature and of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, United States, Adesokan is also a poet, essayist and translator, whose latest work The Age of White Rulers, an English translation of Aiyé D’aiyé Òyìnbó the Yoruba novel by Chief Isaac Delanọ), will soon be published by Bookcraft Africa.
Also, author of the book, Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics, Everything is Sampled, Adesokan is making a second appearance at the LABAF in 11 years. He was at the LABAF in 2013, to moderate a conversation with John Godwin, the architecture professor and passionate advocate of historical preservation in the city of Lagos and his wife Gillian Hopwood, who had just (then) jointly authored a book: Sandbank City: 150 Years of Lagos. The discussion was in keeping with the theme of the LABAF 2013: Nigeria’s Centenary, The Lagos Narrative.
‘Breakout: Hope Is A Stubborn Thing’
In the difficult circumstances that our society finds itself, hope is the one sure compass with which we can navigate the waters. This festival will engage with books in which hope, doggedness, the will to win, is a key subject, whether in fiction or in reality
“Adesokan’s keynote will engage with the main thematic concerns that unify the 12 main books of the Festival”, says Jahman Anikulapo, Programme Chair of the CORA.
Anikulapo, a former Editor of The Guardian on Sunday and the curator and Festival Director of LABAF, explains the choice of the festival’s theme, Hope is a Stubborn Thing, “In the difficult circumstances that our society finds itself, hope is the one sure compass with which we can navigate the waters. This festival will engage with books in which hope, doggedness, the will to win, is a key subject, whether in fiction or in reality”.
He adds, “LABAF 2024 is dedicated to Professor Wole Soyinka, whose constancy is a source of hope and optimism.”
Previous keynoters, in the last 10 editions of this annual homage to literacy, have included Professors Biodun Jeyifo, Niyi Osundare, and Awam Amkpa. The poet Odia Ofeimun has been a keynoter, so has been Ayisha Osori, author of Love Does Not Win Elections.
Here is a list of the main books of the Festival:
- Andre Brink’s Imaginings of Sand
- Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s We, The Scarred
- Mark Manson’s Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
- Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2013),
- Ayi Kwei Armah’s wat nt shemsw:The Way of Companions (2018)
- Wọle Ṣoyinka’s Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
- Antje Krog’s A Change of Tongue
- Edward W. Said and Daniel Barenboim’s Parallels and Paradoxes: EXPLORATIONS IN MUSIC AND SOCIETY
- Peter Zeihan’s The End of The World Is Just The Beginning
- Hans Rosling: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
- Chigozie Obioma’s ‘The Road to the Country’.
- Chibundu Onuzo’s Sankofa.
#TheSOYINKA90Session@LABAF
THE Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was 90 in July, and the CORA staged a monthlong event at the Freedom Park and virtually, which featured readings from, and conversations around four of his memoirs, as well as three exhibition projects, including the conceptual interpretation of aspects from his prison memoirs, The Man Died, as curated by the historian, archivist, Oludamola Adebowale of ASIRI Magazine. The The Man Died has inspired a recent film, by same title, directed by Awam Amkpa, and produced by Femi Odugbemi for Zuri24 Media.
The five memoirs of Soyinka through which he has documented the story of his life and partly his career will also be form the fulcrum of #The Soyinka90@LABAF, to be staged Monday November 11-14 by the CORA Youth Creative Club, CYCC.
Tagged, Conversation between Soyinka and the Younger Generation, the 4-day celebration, according to the LABAF Programme directorate, is to enabled a cross-generational conversation between Soyinka and the youths, many of whom may not have been privileged to encounter the story of Africa’s most garlanded Literary son.
About 60 youths, mostly undergraduates will gather everyday t– Monda November 11-14 — to read and discuss contents of the mo=emoirs,
- AKE: The years of childhood
- ISARA: A Voyage around SA
- IBADAN: The Penkelemies Years , and
- You Must Set Forth at Dawn, nd
- The Man Died
The pilot scheme of the programme, titled #The KONGI90Season, held every Saturday in July – the birth month, has inspired the #The SOYINKA90Session at the LABAF. According to the Programme directorate, “the reports from the pilot scheme was “remarkable and impactful with the young participants asking for a repeat of the experience so they could further probe into the memoirs, and spread words about the Nobel laureate’s career as a public intellectual and activist.”
Aside the daily readings and conversations will also feature at least three exhibitions around the life ad career of Soyinka. These will include: exhibitions of his
- Publications – 90 covers of his books and monographs
- his photographs over the years from cradle to adulthood;
- The Man Died – a conceptual exhibition of his prison memoirs by same title
“The idea is to convert the entire Freedom Park arena – a former Colonial prison – to a site-specific celebration space to commemorate the distinguished life and illustrious career of the enigmatic Wole Soyinka,” stated the LABAF Programme directorate.
About the LABAF: The LABAF runs November 11-17 at its traditional base, Freedom Park, Lagos Island and virtually. Though a week-long feast of campaign for Literacy through literature, performing and visual arts, the heart of the festival lies in the three weekend days of Friday November 15 to Sunday November 17, when the main books of the festival are discussed. The colloquium is the major plenary assembly of the LABAF, organised by the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA. Dubbed the biggest cultural carnival on the continent, LABAF has held consistently since 1999 when it was staged as main event of the maiden (but now rested) “National Creativity Day” to commemorate the return of Professor Chinua Achebe back to Nigeria since he left in 1991 after an auto accident that elft hm confined to wheel chair till the end of his life in March 2013 at age 82.
