Doek, in collaboration with the International Chair in Creative Writing (ICCW) at the UK-based University of East Anglia (UEA), is pleased to announce the writers who will take part in the Doek Literary Festival, which will take place from Thursday 21 to Saturday 23 April 2022 at the Goethe-Institut in Windhoek.
Sponsored by Bank Windhoek, this year’s festival will focus on fiction in novel and short film form. A roster of international and local writers is scheduled to participate in readings and panel discussions and lead creative writing workshops for readers, writers and literature lovers. “As a connector of positive change, we are proud to be associated with the festival,” said Bronwyn Moody, Head of Social Investment, Sponsorships and Events at Bank Windhoek. “We understand that literature reflects humanity and helps us understand ourselves better. We wish the best to the participants.
The festival’s headliner is award-winning Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga and UEA’s first international creative writing chair. Her books Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not and This Mournable Body have received numerous literary awards, including a shortlist for the Booker Prize in 2020. She was also a recent recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prizes, one of the most rich in the world. . The BBC named Nervous Conditions in 2018 as one of the 100 best books to shape the world.
Dangarembga will be joined by the first African woman to receive the Goethe Medal, Zukiswa Wanner, South African editor, publisher and author of the award-winning novels The Madams, Men of the South and London Cape Town Joburg. Since 2006, when she published her first book, Wanner’s novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Nigerian writer Femi Kayode, who won the UEA/Little Brown Award for her debut novel Lightseekers, and Canadian writer and UEA creative writing professor Jean McNeil, who has written over fourteen books and received numerous literary distinctions for his works, around the list of international guests of the festival.
Namibian flavors for the festival lineup will be provided by the Doek 2022-2023 Collective, a diverse cohort of emerging Namibian writers whose works have been featured in Doek! Literary Magazine or to appear in other publications. The Doek Collective is full of young literary talents. It consists of Charmaine // Gamxamus, Roxane Bayer, Kay-Leigh De Sousa and Ndawedwa Denga Hanghuwo, who won the top prize for fiction at the Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards in 2021, Katherine Hunter, Filemon Iiyambo, Dalene Kooper and Ange Mucyo . Remy Ngamije, Founder and Chairman of Doek, Editor-in-Chief of Doek!, and award-winning author of The Eternal Audience of One, completes the exciting group of Namibian writers.
Readers can read all the biographies of the writers as well as the program of the event on the festival website: https://festival2022.doek.africa/.
Established by UEA, ICCW offers five eminent writers, over five years, in five regions of the world, a one-year term to help find, nurture and promote new and emerging writers. For more information on the program see https://www.uea.ac.uk/creative/international-chair-of-creative-writing.
The festival’s headliner is award-winning Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga.
