Awka, the capital city of Anambra State, will be agog this Saturday, as top public figures, writers, intellectuals, literary activists, book lovers, and others, as young writers in the State set to host the 2024 edition of the Chinua Achebe Literary Festival and Memorial Lecture.
Izunna Okafor, the State Coordinator of the Society of Young Nigerian Writers (Anambra State Chapter), disclosed this in Awka while giving update on the association’s preparedness for the 2024 edition of the Achebe Literary Festival and Memorial Lecture.
According to him, Chinua Achebe Literary Festival and Memorial Lecture, initiated in 2016 and currently in its 9th edition, is a literary event the association annually organizes in honour and memory of Nigerian literary icon, Late Prof. Chinua Achebe, in celebration of his life, works and legacies. He added that this year’s event will (as usual) hold on Achebe’s birthday, November 16, 2024, at the Anambra State Central E-Library (also known as the Prof. Kenneth Dike State Central E-Library Library) in Awka, starting at 9AM prompt; with many dignitaries and participants in attendance.
While revealing this year’s theme of the event as “Remembering Achebe… In a Time Like This”; Okafor further disclosed that the 2024 Achebe Memorial Lecture will be delivered by former Governor of Anambra State and 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi; while the current Governor of the State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo would be the Special Guest of Honour.
He added that this year’s event would be Chaired by an author and former official of the United Nations, Mr. Oseloka Obaze, who is also a former Secretary to the State Government in Anambra. Okafor further noted that award-winning writer and Traditional Ruler of Obosi, H.R.H. Igwe Chidubem Iweka; the Traditional Ruler of Achebe’s hometown, Ogidi, H.R.H. Igwe Pharm. Alex Uzo Onyido; and the Traditional Ruler of Umueri, Igwe Sir Ben Emeka, an ardent promoter of education will grace the occasion as the Royal Fathers of the Day; among many other dignitaries expected at the event.
“The event will feature the 2024 Achebe Lecture, drama, spoken word poetry, announcement of the winners of the 2024 Chinua Achebe Essay Writing Competition (for secondary schools), special reading, award presentation, among other literary packages slated for the day,” Okafor said.
He hinted that the occasion will also feature the unveiling and presentation of the 9th Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology, titled “Echoes from the Anthills”; which is the association’s latest international anthology of poems and essays, published in honour and memory of Achebe ahead of the event.
The annual international anthology, he explained, is one of the writers’ way of immortalizing Achebe, and contains poems, essays, and reviews written and submitted by writers from different countries of the world.
Reports have it that the Chinua Achebe Literary Festival and Memorial Lecture has attracted many good legs and good heads to Anambra State, and remains one of the most popular and sustained literary festivals in Africa, since the last nine years of its inception and still counting.
Okafor, an award-winning author and journalist further revealed that this year’s edition of the open-to-all event, which will also mark Achebe’s 94th posthumous birthday and eleven years of his death, will equally be graced by arrays of literary icons from within and outside the country, who will be storming Awka to honour the legendary author, Achebe.
Born November 16, 1930, Prof. Chinua Achebe, who hailed from Ogidi in Anambra State, was a foremost Nigerian writer, critic, and author of Things Fall Apart. He died on March 21, 2013, at the age of 82. Since 2016, Chinua Achebe Literary Festival holds on Achebe’s birthday every year till date.