The fifth edition of the Sokoto Book and Arts Festival 2025, or SobaFest 2025, with the theme “Intersections,” runs from August 22 – 24, 2025.
The Sokoto Book and Arts Festival was first hosted in Sokoto, Nigeria, in 2021 with the collaboration of organisations like Book O’clock Review, Poetry Club UDUS, and Caliphate Arts and Literary Forum. It featured a series of virtual and in-person activities like book chats, panel discussions, art exhibitions, film screenings, plays, poetry, music, dance performances, and much more.
The fifth edition, co-curated by writer and cultural curator Zainab Abdulrazaq and award-winning poet Ridwan Fasasi, returns to the northwestern region of the West African country this August. SobaFest 2025 argues that the African postmodern artist is an intersectional entity. Accordingly, the festival will hold space for conversations around hybridity, post/decolonial identity, linguistic transformations, genre fusion and fluidity, reimagined authenticity, home-diaspora liminalities, critical arts, cross-sectoral practices, and AI-tech fusion — all within the bounds of literary and artistic expression grounded in Arewa.
Festival Director, Uchenna Emelife said, “Intersections isn’t just a theme — it’s a reflection of the African artist who navigates multiple selves, a metaphor for how we live and create in a world of shifting meanings and layered histories. This edition will explore those overlaps with clarity, depth, and celebration.”
Audiences can expect a wide-ranging programme including poetry performances, panel discussions, book chats, art exhibitions, dance, music, workshops, and more — all designed to invite dialogue, provoke thought, and celebrate creative intersections.
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