The program offered eight panels covering indigenous languages; copyright; freedom to publish; educational publishing; industry data; and publishing ecosystem talks. Language was a recurring theme through the seminar, including when star Kenyan author, Ngugi Wa Thiongo’o, said, ‘Monolingualism is the carbon monoxide of cultures. Multilingualism is the oxygen of cultures’.
IPA Vice President, Bodour Al Qasimi, the driving force behind the seminar, described Africa as ‘one of the most widely misunderstood regions in the world…and one of the most under-represented regions in global literature and culture’.