Letras Africanas: Fatou Diome en Pamplona y San Sebastián

The Casa África Letras Africanas (African Letters) programme aims to bring the leading voices of contemporary African literature closer to Spanish audiences.

Literature is, without a doubt, one of the indispensable ways for bringing us closer to the African continent´s social, political and cultural reality. However, access of Spanish readers to that enormous and extremely rich literary production is very limited, for reasons related to its translation and its scarce integration into our country´s book market.

Through this project, Casa África aims to remedy this gap, from a dual line of action: to facilitate the presence in various Spanish cities of the continent´s most famous writers, and to promote the reading of some of the works by these authors in the cities they visit.

Throughout 2009, Letras Africanas (African Letters) made possible the presentation of several African authors in various Spanish cities: Germano Almeida in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife; Fatou Diome in Seville and Cádiz;  Moussa Konaté in Barcelona, and Amma Darko in Oviedo and Bilbao.

In 2010, we have had the pleasure of welcoming Tanella Boni in Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca, María Nsue in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Tenerife, Veronique Tadjo in Vitoria, Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela, Jamal Mahjoub in the cities of Barcelona and Valencia and Boubacar Boris Diop in Canary Islands and Cádiz. Now we welcome Fatou Diome, a Senegalese writer who is always inspired by the traditional art of storytelling and who will be present in Spain as part of African letters. She is the author of Las que aguardan, the last book published by Casa África in its Literature Collection and will be at:

• Biblioteca de Barañain, Pamplona: 21st November, from 20:00 to 21:30.
• Ikastola Axular Lizeoa, San Sebastián: 22nd November, from 10:30 to 12:30 (in collaboration with Fundación Haurralde)
• Museo San Telmo, San Sebastián: 22nd November, from 19:00 to 20:30 (in collaboration with Fundación Haurralde)

The act on the 21st November at the Public Library of Barañain, in Pamplona, will be a literary meeting between the writer Fatou Diome and members of reading clubs of the Comunidad Foral of Navarra. During this meeting. the Senegalese writer will present her novel Las que aguardan.

A new session of African Letters will be hosted the next day in San Sebastián. In the morning with students from 4th year of ESO and "Bachiller" and in the afternoon with literature professionals and the general public, all this with the collaboration of Fundación Haurralde, an NGO from the Basque Country which has been working actively for several years on the African continent on two main lines: Cooperation in Development and Education for Development