WOLE TO READ AFRICAN PLAYS ON BBC

Wole Soyinka will judge the 2010 BBC World Service African Drama competition.
The highly respected Nigerian professor, writer, poet, playwright and Nobel Literature Laureate will be on the panel of judges at the BBC World Service’s 50th season of African radio drama BBC African performance launch.
Listeners have until February 15, 2009 to enter their plays, which must be half an hour long when read aloud and have no more than six main characters.
Plays that are short-listed will be read by Soyinka, who will make the final decision. The winners will be announced on March 1, 2009.
Soyinko believes the BBC’s season of African radio drama penetrates Africa’s borders.
“In one fell swoop – they listen in Zimbabwe at the same time as in Sudan, South Africa, Nigeria and Sierra Leone,” he points out. “And this is definitely a crossing of boundaries in a way that even the written word on its own might not have.”
By way of celebrating five decades of African radio drama excellence on the BBC World Service, Soyinko has agreed to judge the contest this year.
BBC World Service English drama producer for Africa Jenny Horrocks says, “We are looking forward to new brilliant entries from our audiences.”

SOYINKA AND MAATHAI TO ATTEND KENYAN HAY FESTIVAL

StoryMoja Hay Festival will have the privilege of hosting two Nobel Laureates Kenya’s Wangari Maathai and Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka.
The Storymoja Hay Festival will run from July 31 to August 2 at the Impala grounds, Ngong Road. Storymoja is a local publishing company whose sole mission is getting ‘a book in every hand’.
The festival will also play host to Malian prince Seckou Keita, bestselling authors Hanif Kureishi and Vikram Seth, as well as the journalist turned writer Kate Adie and writers Jan Blake, Daniel Morden, Mukoma wa Ngugi, Chika Unigwe amongst others. International filmmaker and director Nick Broomfield will also be present.
The three day festival will feature over 100 events based on 12 themes such as Literature, Environment, Gender, ICT, Health, Diversity, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Gender, Beauty and Self-Development, designed to attract different target groups of different interests.

Kenyans to be guests at Wole Soyinka’s speech

The plans for a week-long festival dubbed the Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week in Tanzania are finally complete. The festival, is set for April 13 to 17. Invited guests include delegates from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa. The list of invited guests is yet to be released.
Professor Wole Soyinka is expected to deliver the Nyerere Annual Lecture. The organisers are expecting a number of African personalities like Oliver Fanon, the author and essayist Frantz Fanon’s son and Gamal Nkrumah son of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah’s son. A delegation from the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) will also be in attendance. All the events are open to the public to attend and participate.