2024-04-23 18:05:49
Initiated under the theme “Writing the in-between”, this meeting allowed African women writers to return to the main themes of their latest works, as well as the influence of immigration on their careers.
Through their works, these writers have tried to demonstrate to what extent writing is an effective means of transcending geographical barriers to give a voice to the first generations of immigrants, often neglected in the world of literature, but also to talk about taboo subjects or to highlight the differences between Africa and the West.
Born in Paris to Mauritanian parents, the writer Fanta Dramé returned to her work “Ajar-Paris” in which she conducts a deep reflection around her father’s migratory journey, collecting his words and going so far as to redo the the route he followed to get to France.
Wishing to “maintain the legacy” of her father’s words, the one who is also a teacher in Pantin in Seine-Saint-Denis, said she thought of writing this book after losing her paternal grandmother in 2013 and having went to her father’s village (Ajar), where she noticed a real gap with Paris.
For her part, the Moroccan novelist and short story writer Leila Bahsain explained that her third novel “Ce que je sais de monsieur Jacques”, whose events take place in Marrakech, aims to raise readers’ awareness of the subject of violence against children, through a fairly complex construction of characters illustrating a dominated-dominant relationship, both economically, culturally and socially.
For her part, the Cameroonian novelist, poet and essayist Boum Hemley, detailed the important aspects of her latest novel “The Fisherman’s Dream”, which evokes the lives of Zacharias, a fisherman in a coastal village in Cameroon and his grandson , Zack, who became a clinical psychologist in Paris.
The writer said that her work attempts to tell the singularities of these two destinies and to show to what extent “we all carry an in-between”.
Founded by Mahi Binebine (writer and visual artist), Fatimata Wane-Sagna (journalist), Hanane Essaydi (academic) and Younès Ajarraï (cultural entrepreneur) and supported by the association “We African Art”, the African Book Festival aims to an eloquent celebration of African literature and culture is a major cultural event that brings together writers, thinkers and intellectuals from Africa, its diasporas and its descendants.
For this second edition of the festival, the programming offers themes reflecting the scientific and editorial news of Africa and devotes a particular place to the reactivation and consolidation of memories and links which unite all Africans wherever they are. .
Thus, the festival sees the presence of several figures of African literature such as José-Eduardo Agualusa (Angola), Abdelkader Benali (Morocco), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Senegal), Ali Benmakhlouf (Morocco), Sophie Bessis (Tunisia), Siham Bouhlal (Morocco), Yasmine Chami (Morocco), Touhfat Mouhtare (Comoros), Wilfried N’Sondé (Republic of Congo), Saad Khiari (Algeria) and Mia Couto (Mozambique).
2024-04-23 18:05:49