Open Book

Seven years in

Now in its seventh year, the Open Book Festival has established itself as one of South Africa’s most innovative and leading book festivals. It is committed to creating a platform to celebrate South African writers, as well as hosting top international authors. The festival strives to instill an interest in and love of reading among young attendees, while the programme of more than 100 events over five days is designed to resonate with the festival-goers long after the event. Elements of the festival programme include talks by international authors and South African writers, poetry, a comics marketplace, panel discussions, book launches, outreach reading initiatives, youth programmes and writer sports. The festival has been recognised internationally and was shortlisted twice for the London Book Fair Excellence Awards in the category of Literary Festivals. In 2016, Open Book hosted nearly 10 000 visitors at the 125 events with 251 local and international authors.

Hosted by the Book Lounge and the Fugard Theatre, with events also taking place at the A4 Arts Foundation, District Six Homecoming Centre and Central Library Cape Town, the Open Book Festival took place from 6-10 September 2017.

“We have once again worked hard to bring you a phenomenal line up of South African and international authors across a range of genres talking about topics that are engaging, relevant and thought-provoking,” says Festival Director Mervyn Sloman.

“The nature of the open discussions and debates between authors and audiences and the conversations that continue beyond the event, are what make the Festival unique,”

Following the enormous success of the collaboration between Poetica and #cocreateSA last year, #cocreatePOETICA was once again part of the Open Book Festival. #cocreatePOETICA provides a platform for readings, performances and poetical discussions and features a diverse range of poets from established names through to those at the beginnings of their careers. The aim of the partnership with #cocreateSA and Poetica is to use the art form of RAP and the spoken word to co-create solutions to mutual challenges by providing a platform that voices the concerns of the youth, by the youth.

The popular Comics Fest took place under the Open Book umbrella on 9 and 10 September. With an array of activities, workshops, discussions and demonstrations. Seasoned illustrator Andy Mason hosted a Monster Battle Draw Off throughout the weekend.