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The Review - FEATURE
Published: 31 May 2007

Take a trip to Africa – in London

FORGET Bollywood – a celebration of all things African kicks off in London on Saturday.
The Word from Africa festival, hosted by arts project Africa Beyond, includes poetry from Sudan and Somalia, literature from Zimbabwe and music from Cameroon and Ghana as well as a number of pan-African events and discussions on the current state of African culture.
The eight-day festival is hoping to provide visitors with a glimpse into the huge cultural diversity of the continent. Africa is home to 54 countries and nearly 2000 languages, from Swahili and Somali to Tonga, Hausa and Zulu. Many are spoken in homes and neighbourhoods across London but few have ever reached a wider audience.
Africa Beyond director Tessa Watt hopes the festival will provide the artists with a rare opportunity to share how their mother tongue has shaped the way they think and write.
She says: “Perhaps because of its diversity, African culture has sometimes been overshadowed by other cultures. Each African language represents its own music, food and culture.
“A lot of people feel now that Africa may be the next trendy Bollywood. There is so much music that starting to come into the mainstream and African arts are coming into the foreground.”
Highlights of the festival, which kicks off with a day-long launch at the British Museum on Saturday, include a speech from one of Africa’s greatest writers, Kenyan, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and an acoustic set from the wonderful Cameroonian singer-songwriter Coco Mbassi.
There are also a series of intimate performances at African restaurants and other venues around London, from a writers’ evening at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden to South African Jazz at the Q bar in Maida Vale.
As Ms Watt says: “A lot of people might have noticed the Eritrean restaurant on their street and thought about popping in there. We hope this will encourage people to do just that and learn more about African culture along the way.”
* For full details of dates and venues of the Word festival go to www.bbc.co.uk/africabeyond

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