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Hargeysa, Somaliland, June 12, 2010 – The Institute for Practical
Research and Training (IPRT) is pleased that the Chinua Achebe Center
and Chimurenga have chosen Somaliland’s capital city, Hargeysa, as one
of 14 “pilgrimage” cities to be explored by African writers while the
FIFA World Cup tournament is being held in South Africa.
IPRT is honored to host multiple award-winning author Doreen Baingana in
her “pilgrimage to Hargeysa”. Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan writer of
international acclaim. In 2003, she won the Associated Writing Programs
Award for Short Edition. She was also awarded the 2004 Washington
Independent Writers Fiction Prize. She was twice a finalist for the
Caine Prize for African Writing. Her most recent work Tropical Fish:
Stories out of Entebbe earned the Commonwealth Writers Best First Book
Award in the African region. Doreen Baingana trained as a lawyer at
Makerere University in Uganda, and later received a Masters Degree in
Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland in the
United States.
“Pilgrimages,” a new project of the Chinua Achebe Center for African
Writers and Artists at Bard College and Chimurenga, will send 14 African
writers to 13 African cities, and one city in Brazil, for two weeks to
explore the complexities of disparate urban landscapes. The writers will
create 13 nonfiction travel-writing books about their trips that will
capture each city as South Africa hosts Africa’s first World Cup. At the
same time the continent will be on display, to itself and to the world,
to a greater degree than at any time since independence. The 13
collected books are intended to prompt a shift in the focus of African
reportage and will comprise the “Pilgrimages” book series, to be
published simultaneously in Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town during the
2012 African Cup of Nations football tournament.
Together, the “Pilgrimages” book series and a website will be the most
significant single addition to the continent’s archive of literary
knowledge since the launch of the Heinemann African Writers Series in
1962.
“These talented writers are about to embark on 14 wholly different and
fascinating itineraries, from exploring ancient scrolls in Timbuktu, to
the Anglican Church in Uganda, to Somaliland’s elections, to name a
few,” says Tom Burke, the Achebe Center program manager. “It is a
landmark project, and our partners—large and small—across the continent
have lent enthusiasm and support. It’s an exciting time to watch these
pilgrimages unfold, and it will be quite something to read these books
once their pages are written.”
The 13 writers that will participate in the “Pilgrimages” project and
the cities they will visit are: Chris Abani (Johannesburg, South
Africa); Doreen Baingana (Hargeysa, Somaliland); Uzodinma Iweala
(Timbuktu, Mali); Funmi Iyanda (Durban, South Africa); Billy Kahora
(Luanda, Angola); Kojo Laing (Cape Town, South Africa); Victor LaValle
(Kampala, Uganda); Alain Mabanckou (Lagos, Nigeria); Nimo Mahamud Hassan
(Khartoum, Sudan); Akenji Ndumu (Abidjan, Ivory Coast); Yvonne Owuor
(Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo); Nicole Turner (Nairobi,
Kenya);; Abdourahman A. Waberi (Salvador, Brazil); and Binyavanga
Wainaina (Touba, Senegal).
“We are pleased that the Chinua Achebe Center has included Hargeysa in
the “pilgrimages” project. Doreen Baingana will be in Somaliland at a
time our attention is focused on our second presidential election and
World Cup football being played in Africa for the first time; a very
interesting time indeed”, said Dr. Ahmed Hussein Esa, Director of IPRT.
During her stay in Somaliland, Doreen Baingana will visit Somaliland
writers, poets, playwrights and artists. She will also hold question and
answer sessions with student and reader clubs and tour heritage sites.
The Institute for Practical Research and Training (IPRT) | Friday, June
11, 2010
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