The 2014 International Writers Day organized by the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) has been postponed due to the outbreak of the Ebola disease in West Africa.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in collaboration with the international communities are making tremendous effort to tackle and curb the deadly disease. The 2014 Writers day is devoted to the life and work of the late Chinua Achebe, known as the grandfather of African literature.
According to Professor Atukwei Okai, General Secretary of PAWA, in a statement to the Ghanaian News Agency, Okai advised parents to help children develop interest in reading in order to form the habit. He also commended writers across the continent for their courageous role in the struggle for Africa’s development through their stories and poems.
He further stressed that “The new law states that I read and therefore I am. This is because he who does not read would not know the time of the day. And this is because, he who is not aware is not awake,”
Okai urged the African governments to help revive the culture of reading in Africans by establishing libraries and stocking them with books, especially those written by African writers, which will help give Africa a fresh understanding and the bravely to confront and overturn the dehumanizing status quo of the centuries and contemporary decades.
Prof Okai concluded his statement by saying that the event would honor the memory of late African writers such as Jayne Cortez, Amiri Baraka, Sam Greenlee, Maya Angelou, Nadine Gordimer of South Africa, Kofi Awoonor of Ghana , Chinua Achebe of Nigeria and Prof Ali Mazrui of Kenya.
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