Development Fund 2021/22: Africa Writes
Dr Kate Wallis (English): Africa Writes, Exeter 2022: Networks and Exchanges
This project sought to bring the Africa Writes festival to Exeter in a brilliant, vibrant celebration of African literature. Africa Writes was founded and is produced by the Royal African Society (RAS), and the festival is a showcase of established and emerging authors from the African continent and its diaspora. Dr Wallis ensured the success of Africa Writes – Exeter through a number of collaborations: the RAS (co-producers), Bookbag (local independent bookshop), Exeter City of Literature, the National Education Union (NEU), Saseni!, and the Exeter Decolonising Network (EDN).
The Africa Writes festival took place over a weekend in June 2022 (17th-19th) and delivered a high-quality, engaging and innovative programme including a series of in-conversation events with authors, a series of panel discussions between writers of African heritage that built creative connections, and a workshop and events programme aimed at young people aged 16 to 24. Through the curation, staging, distribution and evaluation process of this festival, this project aimed to:
- Embed decolonial methodologies more strongly within Africa Writes in terms of approaches to curating, staging and reflecting critically on literary events.
- Develop and test models of producing and evaluating literary events that increase exchanges and collaborations between creatives in the South West and Africa.
- Enable more young people in the South West to meaningfully engage with African and African diaspora books.
- Document the ways in which literary events that increase access to African and African diaspora books can shift perspectives and support anti-racism work.
More broadly, this project aimed to draw attention to inequalities within global literary production, while conceptualizing the ways in which the forging of city-based exchange and pan-African literary networks can work against these inequalities. Built around Exeter as a city hub, and concerned with creating interlinked virtual and physical communities of readers, writers and creatives across South West England and Africa, this project responds directly to these inequalities and works towards creating new maps for African and African diaspora literary production.
Dr Kate Wallis (English)
