ONE of Africa’s largest and longest-running literature festivals opened on Monday (March 15) and will run until March 21.
Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Creative Arts (CCA), the 24th edition of the Time of the Writer International Festival held its virtual opening.
Time of the Writer co-curator Siphindile Hlongwa welcomed more than 300 viewers to the festival.
“Through our championing spirit, exactly one year ago, we became the first South African festival to venture on an online platform.
“This week the festival is back with their second virtual edition that offers a jam-packed programme with over 30 sessions and over 100 participants,” said Hlongwa.
Speaking to this year’s festival and theme, “The writer: witness, canary in the mine or testifier?”, CCA director Ismail Mahomed said: “We believe that these three roles are incredibly important to defend our democracy.
“The CCA values the support that it receives from university leadership, our partners and particularly the artists we work with, to be able to ensure that we create a platform for dialogue that helps us to engage with our democracy so that we can create the systems and the opportunity which enables to endow it to future generations of South Africans.”
The festival's opening also included an introduction to featured writer Fred Khumalo, joining in with four of the festival's sessions and inaugural festival literature champion, Ntokozo Ndlovu.
Ndlovu was rewarded this title by the festival for his sterling work, with the Siyafunda-Donate-A-Book project, making it possible for children in rural schools to have access to literature.
Writer, editor, publisher and curator Zukiswa Wanner presented a keynote speech on the writer’s voice in a political, social and artistically-conscious world.
“While we may want to claim to be canaries in the mine, we probably are not.
“We are just engaging with our past and knowing how it will shape our future, and we seem prophetic only because our leaders are so anti-intellectual, so anti-literature that they do not read so they too can heed the warnings.
“I hope this is the case,” she said.
Time of the Writer features a diverse gathering of leading novelists, social commentators, activists, playwrights, short story writers and poets.