By Sa Eun-young
Staff Reporter
Prominent writers from Asia and Africa will flock to Korea for the Asia Africa Literature Festival to be held in Jeonju November. The committee for the Asia Africa Literature Festival confirmed the participation of more than 80 Asian and African leading writers who will be joined by over 150 Korean writers.
The multi-cultural event aims to create a platform for open discussion on literature of the Third World. For this reason, participating writers are those who concentrated on works that were not centered on Europe and did not insist on one culture.
Among the renowned writers from Asia are Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Egyptian writer Salwa Bakr and Indian writer Ruskin Bond. The festival will also see African writers poet Barolong Seboni from Botswana, writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor from Kenya and poet Akeem Lasisi from Nigeria.
Asia and Africa have a number of Nobel Prize laureates, such as Oe Kenzaburo, Nadine Gordimer and Chinua Achebe, but they will not attend the festival.
Veteran writers Ko Un, Kim Ji-ha and Lee Moon-yeol will be on hand to represent Korean literature.
The festival will also include symposiums, forums and cultural activities such as talks with various writers, lectures, booths of participating countries, as well as a fundraising event that aims to send books to Africa.
The Asia Africa Literature Festival will take place on Nov.8 to 12.