The 13th edition of the Guyana International Book Festival is being held from November 27 to 30, 2024. After the Caribbean last year, the Festival is putting the spotlight on Africa and youth through several authors: Cameroonian Djaïli Amadou Amal, Goncourt Prize for high school students with his novel Les Impatientes, the Franco-Ivorian Serge Bilé, the Ivorian Armand Gauz, the Congolese, Wilfried N’Sondé, the Malagasy Jean-Luc Raharimanana, the Afro-Antillean Sylvia Serbin, the Congolese Ekanga Shungu.
This year, as for the previous edition, shows will be offered: theater, stories, poetry… In the same vein, a class of middle school students from Mana will come to meet other schools in Cayenne to present a puppet show.
Meetings are therefore planned with the invited authors: in schools or at the Zéphyr.
The Festival is indeed returning to the Cayenne performance hall which it was unable to benefit from two years ago due to the work. This is where most of the literary cafés, round tables and meetings will take place.
On site, the public will be able to meet invited authors, writers, booksellers and publishers from Guyana, but also the Brazilian Federation of University Scholars of Science, Letters and the Arts which will present authors from Brazil.
Among the new features this year: a space reserved for self-published Guyanese authors. Beforehand, Promolivres carried out a survey on the subject, the results of which will be presented during the Festival.
The final objective could be the creation of a structure to print books in Guyana and respond to logistical difficulties.
Authors from Guyana will present their publications. Among the most recent: Guyana, land of exceptions by Eric Médaille. During the festival, six Guyanese authors who left last year for a residency on the Island of Marajò, in Brazil, will also present the fruit of their work: a collection of short stories entitled Marajò.
Please note: all appointments are free.
Jean-Jacques Jarele SIKA / Les Echos du Congo-Brazzaville
