The 2023 Ake Arts and Book Festival was held from November 22–25, and it was an absolute success.

Founded in 2012, Ake Arts and Book Festival is a Lagos-based cultural festival of readings, discussions, book chats, film, music, and books. This year’s program consisted of readings and discussions with many important authors in the African literary scene.

Some of the authors who participated in this year’s book chats were Hemley Boum, Petina Gappah, Wole Talabi, Stephen Buoro, DK Nnuro, Gothataone Moeng, Bolu Babalola, Bisi Adjapon, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Priya Hein, Kelechi Okafor, and Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu. The cast of authors who attended this year is absolutely mind-blowing!

The panel discussions were quite insightful as well. Some of our favorites were “African Women in Publishing”, “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Africa”, “What’s Cooking in Nigeria’s Gender Wars, and “The Democratisation of Knowledge”, among others.

The highlight was definitely the Games Night: African Book Quiz edition, where the audience looks engrossed as they try to guess the correct books.

Check out the photos from the 2023 Ake Festival below! We cannot wait for next year’s edition.

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All photos sourced from Ake Arts and Book Festival’s Instagram @akefestival.