Lagos, Nigeria – Earlier this month, an electrical bulb glistened above Umar Abubakar Sidi’s bald head and his glasses mirrored blue mild from his laptop display as he sat in entrance of a bookshelf.
He was about to learn from his poetry e-book on the second of a three-day annual e-book competition to an viewers largely within the southeastern metropolis of Enugu, nearly 600km from Lagos the place he lives.
“There isn’t a pleasure higher than being in communion with fellow creatives,” he stated with a prepared smile earlier than studying.
Greater than 100 writers, artists and readers had gathered on the Alliance Francaise in Enugu and nearly over Zoom to take heed to Sidi and others take part in e-book chats, panel discussions and conversations on the Crater Literary Pageant.
The competition started in 2017 when its founder Adachukwu Onwudiwe was unable to attend the Ake literary competition in Abeokuta, a two-hour drive from Lagos, as a result of she couldn’t get break day from her job as a librarian at a non-profit. As there was no comparable competition in Enugu, she determined to fill the hole by establishing her personal.
For years, Enugu was a wealthy literary hub, producing a few of Africa’s high writers together with Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Chimamanda Adichie and Chika Unigwe. However over the previous decade, festivals that remember writers and literature within the area disappeared, in accordance with Onwudiwe.
“There simply hasn’t been a concerted effort to maintain the literary heritage by the federal government and the non-public sector,” 34-year-old Onwudiwe, who can also be a author, advised Al Jazeera. “Why we wished to do it [the festival] is to advertise literature and creativity. There are these doing issues within the area however as a result of their names are usually not within the huge magazines, nobody is aware of what they’re doing. So we determined that we’re going to cater for these ones.”
A brand new breed
Lately, researchers have identified a declining studying tradition in Nigeria as folks’s consideration spans wane globally, partly because of the rise of social media networks like Instagram and TikTok.
However Onwudiwe stated the common age of these current on the 5 editions of the competition has ranged from 20 to 45. And these youngish individuals are additionally trumpeting their attendance on, coincidentally, social media.
“One of many issues we mentioned is the low consideration span, about how we will create to maintain folks’s consideration … with the best insurance policies inside training and tradition, we will really try this,” she stated.
Throughout the nation, comparable new festivals are springing as much as showcase native arts, reviving writing communities and facilitating mental intercourse within the mould of older ones just like the Lagos E book and Artwork Pageant (LABAF) and the Ake competition, which started in 1999 and 2013 respectively.
Maybe coincidentally, many are occurring across the similar time within the final quarter of the 12 months as a parallel or precursor to finish of 12 months festivities now tagged Detty December. These festivals, unfold throughout totally different elements of Nigeria, embrace the Sokoto E book and Arts Pageant, the Benin Artwork and E book Pageant and the Kwara Books and Arts Pageant, amongst others.
These upstarts are usually not solely fostering a studying tradition however they’re breeding new stars, Onwudiwe stated.
“The extra we create these festivals, the extra we give voices to folks,” she stated. “It creates an avenue for authors and publishers to make their works recognized. I want for extra to occur.”
In the meantime, the Ake competition, which organisers say is Africa’s greatest literary spectacle, has been an inspiration for organisers of a few of these fledgling occasions. It held its tenth version this November, in Lagos.
“I’m delighted that I’ve been in a position to give extra folks confidence to discovered new literary festivals,” Lola Shoneyin, veteran author and Ake competition director, advised Al Jazeera. “Part of it [organising the festival] was about displaying folks what is feasible and the truth that I’m a lady makes it extra necessary. It implies that younger women and men may see how they will use their potential.”
For Shoneyin, there are usually not sufficient literary occasions in Nigeria and seeing extra folks taking the initiative to start out new ones is a factor of pleasure.
“I really met the younger girl who began the Benin Arts and E book Pageant as a result of she got here to Ake competition this 12 months all the way in which from Benin. Fortunately, I used to be in a position to spend high quality time together with her and provided some recommendation on what to do subsequent,” she stated.
‘The chance to interact’
Attendees say the occasions are giving audiences from throughout the continent and diaspora entry to writers of all genres, and a nicely of information.
Simply earlier than Sidi, a naval helicopter pilot, learn his poetry to the Crater devoted, three curators – from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Nigeria – joined a playwright from Owerri, close to Enugu, to debate the 1959 Second Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in Rome.
LABAF, which holds occasions at Freedom Park, a former colonial-era jail, held a Q&A session with legendary filmmaker Tunde Kelani and screened his political drama Saworoide.
A star-studded solid together with Tanzania’s Abdulrazak Gurnah and Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka, two of solely 4 Black winners of the Nobel Prize for literature, headlined Ake this 12 months. Writers Nnedi Okorafor and Jennifer Makumbi, rapper M. I. Abaga and singer Brymo, and Nollywood stars Shaffy Bello and Deyemi Okanlawon additionally attended.
Additionally current was Leye Adenle, the London-based creator of the novel Simple Movement Vacationer, who stated that though he had toured Europe, he solely felt actually at house at festivals in Nigeria.
“I nonetheless keep in mind … getting excited at sighting authors I’d learn or knew about however had not but met, and the enjoyment of signing books for Nigerian followers,” he advised Al Jazeera. “The chance to interact one on one with African readers is a privilege that one solely begins to understand when attending e-book festivals in the remainder of the world.”
For Eseoghene Okereka, a 30-year-old author who attended the Crater competition this 12 months, the occasion was an avenue to attach with fellow creatives and commerce concepts.
“It is vitally comforting to know that there are individuals who share your ambitions,” she stated.
Wale Ayinla, a 24-year-old poet residing in Abeokuta, agreed. Attending literary festivals uncovered him to a group of older writers whose recommendation helped him discover his voice and navigate the publishing world, he stated.
Assembly his heroes additionally gave him readability of goal.
“I keep in mind seeing Wole Soyinka as soon as and I simply felt fulfilled,” Ayinla stated. “I knew I needed to do extra so I can be capable to sit on the identical desk with this individual.”
Rewriting the script
However the plot is hardly easy for competition organisers working to have fun tradition and put artists on the map. So that they have needed to rewrite the script.
In contrast to larger festivals which have attracted company funding and are in a position to fly in friends to Nigeria from internationally, Onwudiwe has had to offer her personal funds. There has additionally been the goodwill of some particular person donors and the zealousness of a small cohort of volunteers.
This 12 months, she needed to work with a small funds of 390,000 Nigerian naira [$875], which considerably hampered planning.
“We’ve not been in a position to safe any company sponsorship,” Onwudiwe advised Al Jazeera. “The artistic scene [in the east] will not be that huge … being underfunded implies that now we have to stay small.”
Insecurity has additionally punctured the peace in elements of the southeast, as “unknown gunmen”, a catchall phrase for separatists and armed teams, benefit from what locals name the financial and political marginalisation by the federal authorities.
So, Onwudiwe has made the competition a hybrid model to chop down on prices and is seeking to create different occasions for youngsters, in efforts to revive a studying tradition.
Though it comes at a worth, she says she is comfortable to offer a platform and join writers with the readers who help them.
“There are occasions that folks attain out to me to say they noticed my competition portfolio on-line and need to meet a visitor on the competition and I hyperlink them as much as purchase their books or different issues,” she stated. “For me, that is essential.”
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