Sokoto Book and Arts Festival Returns This November
The second edition of Sokoto Book and Arts Festival SOBAFest is set to hold this November from the 4th to 6th. The organisers say it will be bigger and better.
Themed “A Returning”, this edition hopes to spark off conversations that would spur a need for a return to arts, to reconnect to the artistic nature the state and northern Nigeria is known for and to fill in that vacuum years of neglect has created.
The theme’s concept note reads: “A returning to yourself; your origin. To search within yourself for what you may have forgotten. To revive, to create. What have you lost? And what will you find? Buried literature? Unremembered art? Deferred inventions? Obliterated cultural acts? This edition of Sokoto Book and Arts Festival aims at sparking conversations on the need to search introspectively and bare the art and culture the Caliphate is known for. What have we subconsciously consigned to oblivion? It’s time to Return and to Remember. To bring the Past to the Present.”
The festival will hold as a hybrid of virtual and physical engagements in Sokoto, Nigeria. On the lineup, are activities like book chats, panel discussions, art exhibitions, film screenings, plays, poetry, music and dance performances, awards, arts contests and much more. The winners of the SOBAFest x Isele Prize, Queen Amina Short Story Prize will also be awarded at the festival.
Expected guests are a cross-connect of various set of individuals, from writers to poets to publishers to policymakers to educators to people in tech. Some of these guests include Arc. Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, the First Lady of Kaduna state and Publisher of Almara Books, Umar Abubakar Sidi, author of Like Butterflies Scattered About by Art Rascals, TJ Benson, author of People Live Here, Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla, Kukogho Iruesiri Samson, author of Devil’s Pawn, Dr. Nasir Daniya, DG ICT Directorate Sokoto, Prof. Asabe Kabir, author of Destinies of Life, Dr. Mansur Isa Buhari, Abdulrahman Liman, King Skot, Barr. Hafsat Dange, Salihu Mahe, author of How To View The World From A Glass Prism, and much more.
Registration for Sokoto Book and Arts Festival #SOBAFest22 is ongoing and costs N1000. Interested persons are to visit this link to register.
The headline sponsors of SOBAFest22 are: Almara Publishers, Konya Shams Rumi and Isele Magazine. Partners are: Teach for Change Nigeria, 21st Century Entrepreneurs Hub, NTA Sokoto, Open Arts, Beulah Tech, Dreams Imagery, Jikan Babi Productions, Poetic Wednesdays, Daily Star NG, ICT Directorate Sokoto.
Sokoto Book and Arts Festival is organised by Sokoto Book and Arts Foundation, a literary collective made up of three platforms namely Book O’clock, Caliphate Arts & Literary Forum, and Poetry Club UDUS. It serves us an umbrella body to all creatives in Sokoto.
Follow @soba_fest on all social media to keep tabs.
