In this week’s dispatches on world literature our editors-at-large bring news of secondhand book sales, prize winners, and self-published writers. From a conversations on freedom and creativity in Nairobi to a date with a book store in Hong Kong, read on to find out more!
Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
The closing of UK-based online bookstore Book Depository in April was shocking news to book lovers across the world, including regular customers from Hong Kong. Despite the convenient availability of digital books, many readers still prefer print books for both practical reasons and tactile feelings. Besides the satisfaction of turning real pages, the circulation of books is also part of the cultural scene of a city. The annual charity secondhand book sale “Books for Love @ $10” campaign was held in late April at Taikoo Place this year. A wide range of books, from arts and literature to bestsellers and manga, were on sale for HKD$10 each. The House of Hong Kong Literature also organised a secondhand book bazaar from 2 to 5 May as a way of fundraising to promote Hong Kong literature. The secondhand books were donated by local writers and scholars, covering subject areas of literature, philosophy, history, arts, and social sciences.
But in the digital age, brick-and-mortar bookstores struggle to sustain themselves, especially in a city like Hong Kong that constantly faces high rent and inflation. For three consecutive weekends beginning 29 April, independent local bookshop Hong Kong Book Era is hosting the event “A Date with Bookstores”, in which representatives from different independent bookstores are invited to set up their tables in Hong Kong Book Era to introduce their styles and thematic recommendations to readers. Participants include local bookstores such as HKReaders, Humming Publishing, and Little Little Books, as well as independent publisher Typesetter Publishing. Meanwhile, two talks—one on independent publishing and one on the history of Hong Kong independent bookstores—were also held, on 6 May and 7 May respectively, in connection with the event. The speakers discussed the mutual reliance between independent publishing and bookstores, as well as the vicissitudes of the struggles of Hong Kong’s bookstores.
José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America
Let’s start with a young winner!
Nine-year-old Kiara López (Guatemala) won Miami Dade College’s Pages For All Ages Award for her picture book called La gran travesía de mi mamá y yo about her and her mother’s journey from Guatemala to the US. Kiara wrote the story and did all the illustrations herself. The Pages for All Ages Award “helps young children learn and improve literacy skills while exploring the possibility of pursuing higher education and strengthening family connections.”
López’s win is not the only exciting literary prize win to come out of Central America recently. In late March, the Nicaraguan poet William Alexander González Guevara won the prestigious Premio Hiperión de Poesía for his poetry book called Immigrantes de segunda. Poets Francisco Castaño, Ben Clark, Ariadna G. García, Jesús Munárriz, and Benjamín Prado served as the prize’s jury. Previous winners of the Premio Hiperión de Poesía are famed author Andrés Neuman and multi-awarded Ana Isabel Conejo. Last year, Wiliam Alexander additionally won the XXXV Premio de Poesía Joven Antonio Carvajal for his poetry book called Los nadies.
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Kenya and Nairobi
On May 2nd, 2023, the 2023 Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize Shortlist was announced. It is administered by the Kenyan-based Mystery Publishers, a premier pan-African independent publisher with a focus on African speculative fiction and genre/pop literature stories. A notable feature of this prize is that all the books considered are self-published, which distinguishes the prize from other prizes in the country and region. The 2023 installment was open to Kenyan submissions only and the book shortlist includes Caroline Mbya’s Back-fence Talk and Other Vices, Eng. Peter Nduati’s Gooka From the Village to the City, Davis Njoroges’s Beyond, Muthoni Maina’s The Leaves of May, Hamisi Wawires’s The Hot Chalice, Boniface Nyamweya’s Peeling the Cobwebs, and Peter Muchai’s The Alternative. Public voting is open as we await the impending announcement of this year’s winner.
Elsewhere, on May 4th, Nuruddin Farah was in conversation with Mohamed Abdishukri of Debunk Media at Cheche Bookshop in Nairobi. A writer of Somali descent and of equal footing with contemporaries like Haadrawi, Farah has been writing for decades. While Somalia may be known to memory many for reasons other than its literary abundance, its literary scene is flourishing and prolific. Farah stands tall in the company of Nadifa Mohamed of Black Mamba Boy, Waris Dirie of Desert Flower, Warsan Shire of the infamous ‘Home’ Poem, and Said Salh of The Last Nomad, among others. The conversation at Cheche Bookshop covered many topics, including ideas of and on freedom and creativity. To Farah, the author of the novels North of Dawn, Crossbones and Hiding in Plain Sight, among others, the writer’s role is to dream on behalf of the community. Interestingly, Farah—who writes in English—observed that if his works were to be translated into Somali, he would not ask for a penny.
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