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Ayisha Oshori and Kunle Ajibade will deliver the keynote addresses at the heart of the 23rd Lagos Book& Art Festival (LABAF 2021).
The festival holds from November 15-21, 2021 at the Freedom Park, Lagos Island, Nigeria, with the theme, A FORK IN THE ROAD, but the heart of the feast lies in the three weekend days of Friday November 19 to Sunday November 21, when the main books of the festival are discussed.
Osori, a good governance activist, lawyer and director of the Executive Vice President’s Office at the Open Society Foundations, is the author of Love Does Not Win Elections.
Ajibade, a leading journalist, editor and co-founder of The News, is author of Jailed For Life and What A Country.
- Osori will keynote the opening of the symposium, entitled How Did It Go Awfully Wrong? at 3pm on Friday November 19, 2021. The symposium will feature reviews and conversations around Formation: The Making of Nigeria: From Lugard to Amalgamation, by Fola Fagbile & Feyi Fawehinmi Ø The Politics of Biafra & Future of Nigeria, by Chudi Offodile and Ø The Riddle of the Oil Thief, by King Bubaraye Dakolo.
The reviewers and discussants on the symposium panel include Tade Ipadeola, a lawyer, poet; Richard Mammah, a keen book trade activist and Samuel Osaze, poet and culture journalist. The event will be chaired by the playwright Femi Osofisan, the country’s most performed dramatist and emeritus professor of theatre arts at the University of Ibadan.
- Ajibade will deliver the keynote address at the colloquium entitled: A Fork in The Road, What Choices For Nigeria? at 1pm on Saturday November 20, 2021. After his address the colloquium will feature reviews and conversations around Love Does Not Win Elections by Ayisha Osori; The Bead Collector by Sefi Atta and I, Eric Ngale by Eric Ngale
The reviewers and discussants on the colloqium panel include Onome Onwah, literary enthusiast; Pelu Awofeso, writer, journalist and Aysha Abdulahi, literary activist.
“In each case the keynote will engage with the main thematic concerns in the books that are to be discussed after the address”, says Jahman Anikulapo, Programme Chair of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), which is hosting the event.
Anikulapo, a former Editor of The Guardian on Sunday and co-convener of LABAF, explains the choice of the theme A Fork in The Road, for the Festival. “After the period of languor ushered in by the COVID 19 pandemic, which justified our choice of last year’s festival theme: A State of Flux, the nation has seemingly reached a tipping point with every parameter used to describe the quality of life. All the demons have crawled out of the woodwork. At this point, we are at A Fork in the Road”.
The entire seven-day programme of LABAF 2021 can be accessed here.
