The 2017 Ake Arts and Book Festival took place from 14–18 November 2017, in Abeokuta, Nigeria. One of the event’s attractions was a roundtable conversation involving the participants of the Cameroon-Nigeria Literary Exchange Program—a collaboration between Nigeria’s Saraba magazine and Cameroun’s Bakwa magazine and sponsored by the Goethe Institut offices in Lagos and Yaounde—which took place in Limbe, Cameroun.

The conversation opened with Emmanuel Iduma, editor of Saraba, reading the bios of the nine participants: Adeosun Adams Abayomi, Ajinomoh Ozovehe Caleb, Sada Malumfashi and Socrates Mbamalu from Nigeria; and Godwin Luba, Howard Meh-Buh Maximus, Murielle Simone Wonja, Nkiacha Atemnkeng and Raoul Djimeli from Cameroon. Iduma then spoke briefly about the origins of Saraba. Dzekashu MacViban, editor of Bakwa, explained the need for the literary renaissance spearheaded by Bakwa in Anglophone Cameroun.

Each participant read from their works-in-progress and answered questions from the audience—why they write nonfiction, how tasking nonfiction has been for them.

Here are photos from the event.

Photos by Ake Festival Media Team.