Guest of the Jozi Book Fair

 

The 2011 Guest of the Book Fair is Ellen Banda Aaku.
 

Ellen Banda-Aaku was born in Woking Surrey in 1965. The middle child of three she grew up in Zambia and has lived and worked in Ghana, South Africa, the UK and Zambia. She has a BA in Public Administration from the University of Zambia, an MA in Financial Management with Social Policy from Middlesex University and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. Ellen has worked as a tutor in Literary Studies and as a Writing Consultant with the University of Cape Town. She’s currently is based in the UK where she lives with her two children.

 

Aaku has published three books for children and her short stories have appeared in anthologies published in Australia, South Africa the UK and the US.

 

Her first book for children, Wandi’s Little Voice, won the 2004 Macmillan’s Writers Prize for Africa. In 2007 her short story, Sozi’s Box, won the Commonwealth Short story competition.

In 2011 Aaku published her first novel, Patchwork. Patchwork is set in Zambia at the end of the 1970s and is a story writen from the vantage point of a child growing up the Zambia of the time and observing the world around her. Patchwork is the 2011 winner of the Penguin Prize for African Writing in the fiction category.

 

Ellen will be launching her first novel at the Jozi Book Fair titled Patchwork. She will also be part of our round tables discussing "Women and South African Publishing: between gloss and literature". As part of the JOZI Book Fair initiative she will be hosting a workshop on writing skills for young girls.

 

As a Guest of the Book Fair Ellen Banda Aaku will be involved in a number of events. Some of these are:

i. As a writer of children’s literature Aaku will be involved in the children's programme, which runs for 3 days of the book fair. .

ii. Aaku’s new novel, Patchwork, will be launched at the book fair.

iii. Aaku will participate in a roundtable discussion on women in SA literature titled, "Women and South African Publishing: between gloss and literature". In this roundtable the discussion will look the impact of magazines on the reading habits of women, whether it encourages or discourages reading of other literary forms like novels, drama and so on. 

iv. The JBF has a reception on the opening night, at which the Guest of the Book Fair talks on a literary topic of her choice.

vi. Part of Aaku’s work is teaching creative writing. At the Book Fair Aaku will run a creative writing workshop for teenage girls who are working on writing skills with Khanya College’s Setsi sa Mosadi women’s centre.

v. Aaku will participate in a new event of the Jozi Book Fair, and will be in conversation at a local restaurant on her writing.

 

Besides these activities, Aaku will participate in radio, press and television interviews.