When African literature converged in Port Harcourt

The annual Port Harcourt Book Festival this year had a different hue to it. It is the flagship programme for the Port Harcourt World Book Capital events and was centred on the Africa39 writers; an ambitious list of 39 promising writers that will likely shape the future of African literature.They are young, all under 40 […]

The annual Port Harcourt Book Festival this year had a different hue to it. It is the flagship programme for the Port Harcourt World Book Capital events and was centred on the Africa39 writers; an ambitious list of 39 promising writers that will likely shape the future of African literature.
They are young, all under 40 and their reputations vary. Some are already household names like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Taiye Selasies, others are first emerging, unknown to a large segment of the Anglophone world because they write in French, Lingala or even Spanish.
Twenty-two of the 39 writers were hosted in Port Harcourt, and unlike in previous years where big name writers like Wole Soyinka and Kofi Awoonor have headlined the festival, this year, there were those the Hay Festival believe would shape the future of writing on and from the continent.
They are an eclectic bunch, their thoughts and ideas vary, and much has been said about how far removed these writers are from the first generation of African writers, such as the Soyinkas the Achebes and Ngugis and how their concerns and interests vary from these writers and the raw materials that they used to write their stories and their names on the underbellies of the heavens, as poet Dike Chukwumerije would say.
Editor of the Africa39 Anthology, Ellah Allfrey, writing for The Telegraph says about the writers she met in Port Harcourt; “Here was a group unbothered by the ambiguities of identity, unconcerned with externally assigned labels and more likely to identify “international” by interactions within the continent than those with the global ‘north’.”
It is perhaps due to the eclectic nature of the anthology and the promise it holds that copies of the book were soon in short supply. Visitors to the festival scoured the book fair that ran throughout the festival days looking for copies only to be leave disappointed.
The absence of a single festival headliner was complimented by the absence of Governor Rotimi Ameachi, who traditionally opens the festival and hosts the command performance of the festival play at his residence. None of that happened this year because the governor was away campaigning for the 2015 elections. But his role in the last six years in transforming Port Harcourt from an oil rich city to the World Book Capital is not only remarkable but should stand as a model to others. And this leaves one to wonder what would become of the festival when he leaves office in the next year.
If the organisers felt the absence, the Africa39ners hardly noticed. The organisation of course could have been bettered. Lumping 20 writers on a stage at the University of Port Harcourt for instance hardly gave room for adequate expressions and there could have been more specialized panel discussions on different areas, text and the subtext of writing and contemporary literature from the continent, especially when you have at your disposal such an impressive buffet of writers.
Regardless, there were really stimulating conversations at Rivers Restaurant and by the poolside of the Presidential Hotel where the festival held and these writers engaged and shared ideas and forged new alliances across physical and language boundaries. Don’t be surprised if another anthology or some other collaborative effort springs forth from this convergence.
One of the writers worried that a priest was delivering the keynote address. She was eventually impressed when Bishop Mathew Kukah spoke intelligently about the realities of Nigeria in such a way that non Nigerians appreciated and plucked lessons to take  home to their countries.
But Africa is not a country and writers all have their ideas, idiosyncrasies and style. And these all came to the fore in Port Harcourt. Getting to meet so many authors was the highlight for many festival participants. Others had the opportunity of learning from them through the Caine Prize Surgery which held on the first day of the festival.
Overall, the enduring statement of the festival is that Africa and its literature can’t just be lumped into a summary of arbitrariness, or themes and styles. It is a fluid continent with fluid stories and resilient writers determined to capture these stories in their own ways.