African Month dialogue and lecture“What it means to be African”
The Department of Arts and Culture invites members of the media to an African Month Dialogue and lecture titled “What it means to be African” that will take place at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town.
The department is leading and coordinating a government-wide African Month Festival of Ideas & Cultural Exchange that is taking place throughout the month of May. It is celebrated under the theme We Are Africa - Opening the doors of learning and culture to promote peace and friendship from Cape to Cairo.
The lecturer will be delivered by internationally acclaimed, Somali-born writer, Professor Nuruddin Farah, who is regarded as one of the greatest contemporary fiction writers in the world.
The respondent to the lecturer will be Nigerian born Professor Harry Garuba, an academic; writer, poet and an associate professor at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town.The chair will be Professor Shaun Viljoen from Stellenbosch University, English Department who has recently published a biography on the late author, Richard Rive.
This is part of the Department of Arts and Culture’s inaugural Africa Month (May) programme, that has as its theme: “We are Africa: Opening the Doors of Learning and Culture from Cape to Cairo”. This event is part of a series of lectures and dialogues supported by the Department which began in April this year with a lecture by Ben Okri on “Summoning the African renaissance”, a focus on Higher Education and Africa (Prof Sipho Seepe) as well as African music (Prof Phalandwa Mulaudzi), a dialogue in Grahamstown (featuring Prof Helon Habila, Prof Kole Omotoso and Prof Muxe Nkondo) and will still continue to cover African Languages (Prof Kwesi Prah), African cinema (Tsitsi Dangarembga), and will also feature Binyavanga Wainaina, Linton Kwesi Johnson, among others.
Details of Monday’s event with Prof Nuruddin Farah as guest speaker are as follows;
Venue: Centre for the Book, Cape Town, 62 Queen Victoria Street
Date: 18 May 2015
Time: 18h00
RSVP:
Mthuthuzeli Nqumba
Cell: 082 934 2314
E-mail: Mthuthuzelin@dac.gov.za
Enquiries:
Sandile Memela
Cell: 082 800 3750
Mack Lewele:
Cell: 082 450 5076
