Promoting the Reading of African Literature: An Interview with Marcellina Chikasha
In this post I interview Marcellina Chikasha, the founder of a reading initiative called TALENT. She was brought to my attention by Ivor W. Hartmann , after I complained in a blog post that all the big literary contests, judged by big writers like J.M. Coetzee were not reaching Africa's disadvantaged, especially the talented ones in the rural areas. Well, I got in touch with Marcellina and requested that we chat about this issue. Enjoy. 1. What is the idea behind the African Book Fan Club? This Book Club is now known as TALENT (Tavavanhu African Literature Enterprise). The idea behind the book club is to promote African Literature. How many of us Africans, by whatever definition, can quote glibly from a Shakespearean novel? Even our fathers are able to give us a line or two from Hamlet . How many schools, post-independence, still have Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Shakespeare as set authors for literature? I grew up being bombarded by alien quotes from my university-educated A...