ACADEMIC, poet, translator and essayist Akin Adesokan will deliver the keynote address of the 26th Lagos Book & Art Festival’s (LABAF) colloquium on Friday, November 15.
The Professor of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, United States, will speak on ‘The Pitfalls of Memory from Hope to Despair and Reckoning’.
A statement from the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), organisers of the annual cultural feast, disclosed that Adesokan, who started as a journalist in Lagos, will attend LABAF for the second time in 11 years for the keynote.
The award-winning author of ‘Roots in The Sky’ moderated a session at the 2013 LABAFthemed ‘Nigeria’s Centenary, The Lagos Narrative.’
However, his 2024 keynote will focus on Professor WọleṢoyinka’s Nobel lecture, ‘This Past Must Address Its Present’ and the 2003 documentary film, ‘The Return of Sara Baartman’ by South African director Zola Maseko, about the repatriation of the remains of Sara Baartman, so-called “Hottentot Venus,” to South Africa in 1998.
Executive Editor of PM News/TheNews, where Adesokan once worked, Kunle Ajibade, will chair the academic’s address.
“Adesokan’s keynote will engage with the main thematic concerns that unify the 12 main books of the festival”, said Jahman Anikulapo, CORA’s Programme Chair.
The keynote address will be followed by a panel with the subtheme ‘Reclaiming the Moment’ featuring reviews and conversations around Ayi Kwei Armah’s ‘Wat ntshemsw: The Way of Companions’ and Mark Manson’s ‘Everything F*cked: A Book about Hope.’
The reviewers and discussants on the colloquium panel are poet and lawyer Deji Toye and investment banker Dipo Ogunbiyi. Banker and newspaper columnist at Premium Times Ifeanyi Uddin will moderate the panel, ensuring a lively and insightful conversation.
LABAF 2024’s theme, ‘Breakout: Hope is a Stubborn Thing’, will be a week-long celebration of literature and art. The festival will be held from November 11 to 17 at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, providing a platform for meaningful discussions and creative expressions.
Some past keynoters at the festival include Professors Biodun Jeyifo, NiyiOsundare, and AwamAmkpa. Poet and polemicist Odia Ofeimun has also been a keynoter, as has Ayisha Osori, author of ‘Love Does Not Win Elections.’
Adesokan, translator of Chief Isaac Delano’s ‘AiyéD’aiyéÒyìnbó’ into ‘The Age of White Rulers’, and essayist (Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics, Everything is Sampled) is the latest luminary to present the LABAF’s colloquium keynote.
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