The 22nd Lagos Book & Art Festival (LABAF), themed ‘A State of Flux: Literacy in a period of languor’ will hold from November 9 to 15, the organisers have announced.
A statement signed by Programme Chair, Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), Jahman Anikulapo, disclosed that the festival is dedicated to poet and polemicist, Odia Ofeimun, who clocked 70 earlier this year, and will happen physically and virtually.
The physical events will happen at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, while the virtual event will be on Zoom.
Divided into the main festival (adults), children/students and youth segments, the 2020 LABAF will feature conversations, exhibitions, workshops, drama, poetry, dance and films.
According to Anikulapo, 12 books would be discussed in the main (adult) segments and 15 in the Green Festival (children/students/youth) segment.
Explaining the choice of the theme, Anikulapo gave a lengthy explanation. He said “The deep anxieties inspire ‘A State of Flux in the global political economy; the easy and ready dismissal of ideas that seemed common sense a while ago. The epic struggle of the notion of the nation-state. The rise and rise of a dangerous streak of divisive political ideology that seems to undermine all humanistic values and the lack of cohesive response by governments, everywhere, to the increasing decapitation of the environment by climate change.
“Four months into our choice of the theme: ‘A State of Flux’, the global economy was locked down by the COVID-19. Humankind has since experienced varying degrees of haziness and stupor; the mind is trapped, and competence escapes. To make sense of all this haze, we invite Femi Osofisan’s ‘Kolera Kolej’, the classic satirical novel set in a university campus, a hilarious observation of a society set on snuffing out its best institutions.
“Andre Brink’s ‘A Wall of Plagues’, influenced by Camus, published in 1984 at the time of apartheid’s state of emergency, imagines a devastating descent of plagues imperilling society; Elechi Amadi’s ‘The Great Ponds’ is a fictional take on the 1918 Pandemic and Wọlé Ṣoyínká’s ‘Opera Wọnyosi’, described, in places, as an eloquent play about human decadence and profound stupidity.
“Some of the newer books for discussion, which speak to the theme, include Nancy Fraser’s ‘The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born’, Aramide Ṣegun’s ‘Ẹniitàn: Daughter of Destiny’, Wendy Brown’s ‘In the Ruins of Neoliberalism’, and Joy-Ann Reid’s ‘The Man Who Sold America.’
LABAF was created in 1999 to whip up enthusiasm and support for the book as a cultural item. Apart from being a platform to make books look cool, it is also designed as a large intersection of the book and other arts.
