Sharjah African Literature Festival…an ongoing dialogue between the region and the world

Sharjah, 16 January / WAM / The Sharjah African Literature Festival, which is organized by the Sharjah Book Authority and continues until January 18, has confirmed its distinction as a unique event of its kind in the Gulf and the Arab world by hosting an elite group of African writers alongside Emirati writers, with the aim of enhancing cultural dialogue between Africa and the Arab world and celebrating the richness of the African creative experience.

The first session, which was held in January 2025, achieved a remarkable attendance by attracting more than 10,000 visitors and the participation of 29 writers from the Emirates and Africa, including Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka and Abdul Razzaq Qarneh. The festival received wide praise as an unprecedented platform linking the two continents.

It is noteworthy that this festival is almost the only one in the Arab region dedicated entirely to African literature. In contrast to general literary forums and major book fairs in the Arab world, no other festival targeting African literature appeared exclusively in the Gulf states or the Arab Levant before the Sharjah initiative. At a time when other Arab literary festivals host some African writers within their programmes, Sharjah remains the first to dedicate an annual event to celebrate African narrative and its ancient heritage.

The festival gains its importance in presenting a sustainable and integrated vision to deepen the presence of African literature in the Arab cultural space and support Arab-African knowledge exchange.

Sharjah’s interest in African literature comes within a broader context of openness to African culture in the region. Recent years have witnessed the organization of events celebrating African arts and heritage in the Arab world, although most of them are directed to cultural aspects in general rather than focusing on literature.

The festival is distinguished by its specific focus on literature as a bridge for cultural communication. It does not limit itself to displaying arts or folklore, but rather delves into the depth of the African written and narrated story and brings together writers and thinkers to discuss issues of identity, memory and history from an African perspective.

Through dialogue sessions and direct poetry and story readings, the festival provides the public with an unprecedented opportunity to discover African literary treasures and interact with them critically and aesthetically.

The festival also encourages the translation movement into Arabic, as it inspires publishers and translators to convey the voice of African literature to the Arab reader and generates a continuous dialogue that enriches the local cultural scene with visions and experiences from the African continent, which is consistent with Sharjah’s vision of consolidating cultural diversity and expanding the horizons of knowledge through human communication with various civilizations.

The Sharjah Initiative integrates with a growing global trend to celebrate African literature and highlight its achievements on the international scene. In Europe, during the last decade, festivals dedicated to this purpose have emerged, emphasizing the growing interest in Africa’s narrative voices, the most prominent of which is the African Book Festival in Berlin, Germany, which has been organized annually since 2018 and has, within a few years, become one of the most important literary festivals in Europe and attracts major African writers and the public interested in African literature.

In the United Kingdom, the “Africa Rights” Festival was launched in 2012 to be the largest platform for celebrating contemporary African literature in Britain. It is held annually at the British Library in London with the participation of writers from the African continent and the diaspora.

In France, the African Book Salon in Paris hosts activities that bring together publishers and writers interested in African literature, and the French city of Nantes hosts the African Literature Festival, which celebrated its first decade in October 2025.

These and other European festivals confirm the universality of Africa’s literary presence and the desire of readers across the world to explore Africa’s stories in its authentic languages ​​and voices.

Through the Sharjah African Literature Festival, the Emirate of Sharjah joins this international cultural movement and even gives it a new Arab dimension. The festival expands the presence of African literature in the Arab region and sends a message that literature in its various forms is a global bridge for human understanding.

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