The first annual Rutanang Book Fair will be held in Tlokwe, South Africa on 25 – 27 April 2016; the theme is Decolonising Literature.
It looks like our African Literary Festivals have been coming thick and fast in 2016. With the ending Alexandra Book Fair ending this weekend there is another book fair on the horizon that looks to be kicking it. This is the Rutanang Book Fair which will be hosted at the tail end of April. The festival will include book readings, kid’s corner, school talks, book launches, workshops, panel discussions and poetry sessions.
One of the really cool things that will feature at this festival is screening of digital literature; this is with the screening of #LongStoryShort sessions that enthralled so many of us last year.
Some of the confirmed guests include poet, nonfiction and fiction writer Sabata Mpho Mokae who has written the poetry collection Escaping Trauma (2012) and the biography The Story of Sol T. Plaatje (2010). His debut novel in Setswana, Ga Ke Modisa [I’m Not My Brother’s Keeper] (2012) won the M-Net Literary Award for Best Novel in Setswana as well as the M-Net Film Award; the youth novella Dikeledi [Tears] was launched in 2014. In 2011 he also won the South African Literary Award in the literary journalism category. He is a columnist and a journalist, and a co-founder of the annual Sol Plaatje Literary Festival.

Also featuring will be Kholofelo Maenetsha who wrote To All the Black Women We All Knew and Pinky Khoabane who is a writer, columnist and author. Then there is Presley Chweneyagae best known for starring in the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards.
More people will be confirmed as the festival finally gets to run at the tail end of April this year.
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