A spiritual-rooted author and mother of two authors Kwazi and Thina Njongo, Nomawele Njongo will be hosting the first Funda Mpondo Literary Festival which will be held at St Elizabeth Resource Centre in Lusikisiki, on International Literacy Day, on the 8th of September 2022. The festival will be the first of its nature in the O.R Tambo Region. By doing this they hope as a publishing company to gather many well-known literacy scholars to make a dream-like festival to advance storytelling culture and heritage and they will also launch an Anthology written by learners of Toli Senior Secondary School, an initiative of Esigela SA Learners Book Initiative.
In 2019, Nomawele published her true account called Abortion by the Womb of Democracy, the following year she did her second edition, and her two sons also wrote their own pieces, and were published under KwaziThina in November 2020. “Immediately after doing these publications, many people requested me to publish their work, and some send their manuscripts. That is when I realised, I was a publisher and it sank in my mind I began to define KwaziThina Publishers as a publisher and I shared that with a friend who was a writer from Nigeria, Okon Ukeme who then helped me to design our logo,” she explains.
Esigela SA Learners Book Initiative was inspired by Africa Teen Authors Book Initiative, an international literacy platform created to promote the writing and reading of African stories by teenagers across the African continent to advance Pan-African knowledge system understanding of issues and cohesion at an early age.
The idea of the Anthology initiative was conceived in April 2022 as a literary platform created to promote the writing and reading of African stories in all South African schools.
“I piloted the program at Toli S.S.S, as a group we invited learners to submit stories a high turn of submissions was done and adjudication process was done and 25 stories were selected and the Anthology was edited by Sindiswa Lolwana(HOD) and Nontsikelelo Nonkomo-Madolo and the book will be published in August and launched in the Funda Mpondo Literary Festival,” she says.
By doing this they aim to promote the writing and reading of stories written by those they are familiar with, written about familiar places so that they may relate well and enjoy literature knowing the characters that are portrayed and written by themselves.
Those who wish to attend or to exhibit their books to send us an email at info@kwazithina.co.za or send a WhatsApp at 0793061668.
