Huza Press event KigaliLit rocks Rwanda’s literary scene

Author Sarah Stricker was the guest at the second edition of KigaliLit at the Goethe-Institut Kigali on January 31, 2018. The German writer was moderated by Donnalee Donaldson.

KigaliLit, short for Kigali Literature, is a series of literary events created in a collaboration between Huza Press and the Goethe-Institut Kigali. The series gives a platform to young as well as already established writers to share their works. It constitutes book-readings followed by discussions about writing fiction and the presented stories. This is the second type of “Lit” we have noted here at JamesMurua.com with the first being “Abidjan Lit” which we first saw in September 2016.

The very first edition of KigaliLit took place on the 23^rd November 2017 with Huza Press Short Story Contest 2016 shortlisted writers Denyse Umuhuza and Landry Subira reading their stories to an audience of other writers and other people who love to read. The event was moderated by Donnalee Donaldson the country director at Educate!

The writers shared with the audience their processes of writing, their sources of inspiration and their stories, Landry’ Araje and Denyse’s Inoni. Both of the stories depicted a specific Rwandan reality – Araje from the point of view of a returnee, and Inoni a personal, surrealistic encounter with an imaginary (or real?) giant. The discussion evolving afterwards was concerned with the individual passion for writing of each of the two as well as their identifying as African or Rwandan or just non-categorized writers.

The writers gave words of encouragement to fellow writers in the audience to keep writing, to read other people’s work and to share their works through different platforms. Araje and Inoni are the shortlisted stories which are yet to be published later this year in the second Huza Press Anthology.

This past Wednesday, KigaliLit opted to feature a German author Sarah Stricker which kind of makes sense as it is in collaboration with the Goethe. This event moderated again by Donnalee Donaldson took place in collaboration with Spoken Word Rwanda in the frame of their regular event OpenMic Night. Stricker read passages of her book Fünk Kopeken (Five Kopeks), a novel about the connection of beauty and intelligence, about love, happiness and family through three generations.

Here are images from the East African country’s capital city courtesy of the event organisers.