The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. Taking place every spring in the world’s premier publishing and cultural capital, it is a unique opportunity to explore, understand and capitalise on the innovations shaping the publishing world of the future.
Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, the first woman and first black South African to hold the position of Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cape Town, and former Senior Director of the World Bank, is the keynote speaker at this year’s London Book Fair Chairman’s Breakfast.
The London Book Fair’s Author of the Day on Tuesday 20 April will be author and activist André Brink, and contributing to the diverse programme are South African Poet Laureate Professor Keorapetse Kgositsile; acclaimed author Damon Galgut (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2003); political activist and writer, Achmat Dangor; prestigious novelist Gillian Slovo; multi-award-winning poet, writer and academic Antjie Krog; children’s writer Beverley Naidoo; as well as John van de Ruit, Jonny Steinberg, Zakes Mda, Zoe Wicomb and Professor Njabulo Ndebele.
Together, these and other writers will address the following topics at The London Book Fair:
• South Africa 2010, Writing sport (the effect that the FIFA Soccer World Cup will have on writing, reading and politics)
• Acquiring South African Content
• South Africa in Context (non-fiction writing in South Africa)
• Imagining South Africa (fiction writing in South Africa today)
• Writing Crime in South Africa
• The New South African Reader (reading development and the reading culture in South Africa)
• One Nation Many Voices (how writing in English can be informed by a writer’s indigenous language)
• South Africa in Africa (why is South Africa seen as distinct from the rest of Africa?)
• South African Literary Journals
Gillian Slovo, the UK based South African novelist says, “What a bounteous array! I am proud to appear alongside such an impressive line-up of writers, activists and poets who will gather in London for this excellent event. South African achievements in literature are on clear display with Commonwealth prize winners, Booker prize winners, Nobel and Poet Laureates and feisty novelists. Despite our different pasts and different language groups, we all share a passionate belonging to that wonderful and sometimes terrible, always lively country that is South Africa. One Nation, many voices!”
External seminars, which are open to the public, will also take place at The British Library, Foyles Bookshop and The Southbank Centre. See SA PROMO online events guide for more details.
