Nigeria’s famous arts and book festival, Ake festival, set to take place at Bon Hotel, Ikeja GRA, in Lagos, Nigeria from November 20 – 23, 2024 is set to reflect a more global theme this year after ten years of focusing more on Africa.
Delivering her keynote address on Friday, 8th November, 2024 at the newly opened Ouida’s Bookstore, Opebi, Lagos. The festival founder and director, Lola Shoneyin said,
“This year we are going to be having 24 events which include panel discussions, book chats, the comedy show, the great African book quiz, film screen and the palm wine and poetry event to round the festival up.”
She also noted that the global theme includes inviting guests from all over the world to Lagos, Nigeria and how this is important to shaping our narrative and culture as a country.
“We have guests from 15 countries including Ghana, Kenya, India, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Columbia, Palestine, Congo DRC, United States, United Kingdom, Côte d’Ivoire, Ukraine and Zimbabwe, we have guests from all over the globe. After ten years of running a very Afrocentric Africa-focused festival, we would be opening up to a much more global event and that includes inviting writers from all over the world,” she said.
She also talked about the intentionality for inclusivity and diversity of the writers and guests invited for the festival.
The theme for this year, “Finding Freedom” is set to reflect the current state of the world and the struggle to be free everywhere in the world from Palestine to Congo DRC, Ukraine and even our personal struggles for freedom in the world. It also reflects on and questions democracy, cancer, disability and a lot more.
This year the festival is adding new events to its events line up like the comedy show and bedtime stories. The comedy show features invited guest, Aditi Mittal from India.
Shoneyin said, “We’ve never done that before but if we have a comedian. You might as well use them, right? So if Aditi Mittal is here talking about democracy in India and she’s so well known as a big comedian, you might as well let her share some of her comedies with us. So we invited her to do that.”
“Another thing that we are introducing this year is the bedtime stories. A lot of people come to the festival and then they go home. We thought of adding something extra, something for you to do at night. We have one of the winners of the Windham Campbell Prize this year, Kathryn Scanlan, reading her bedtime story. And also Jennifer Makumbi’s excerpt of her latest novel.”
Ending her address, she commended her team, the festival’s sponsors and partners, including the Open Society Foundation, Sterling Bank who was also represented at the conference, the Lagos state government and the French Cultural Institute among others.
