Nairobi — Soma Nami Books, a leading Kenyan Pan-African Bookstore has announced that it will be hosting The African Book Fair, an annual week-long book fair centering African Literature.
The fair will be Kenya’s largest offering and sale of African books, showcasing over 10,000 books from over 50 African countries and 2000 titles from Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, and Arabophone Africa at discounts of up to 50 per cent of the recommended retail price.
The inaugural African Book Fair by Soma Nami Books will run from August 1-5th 2023 at the McMillan Memorial Library on Banda Street, Nairobi and will have on offer books from continental literary giants including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
Others are Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia, Libya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Madagascar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Tanzania.
Muthoni Muiruri, Co-founder and Director of Soma Nami Books described the fair as an exciting moment for Soma Nami Books given the opportunity to showcase a diverse African catalogue with readers.
“[We are excited] reinforcing the message that we, as Africans, are the main characters in our continent, and here are million stories to prove it. We are changing that narrative, one book, one story at a time.”
The African Book Fair aims to promote African literature and authors, providing a platform that gives African authors the visibility they deserve while making African literature accessible to wider audiences.
The Fair also aims at promoting a reading culture and appreciation of African literary art.
The fair will showcase literature across multiple genres, including fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, young adults’ books, poetry, coffee table books, reference books, personal development books, and so much more.
Founded on the premise and promise of promoting Pan-Africanism through literature, Soma Nami Books, a Pan-African Bookstore based in Nairobi, has since its inception in 2021, been on a mission to increase visibility, accessibility and readership of African books across varied genres.
The bookstore has since grown to become Kenya’s leading Pan-African bookstore offering a vast and eclectic selection of books from the African continent.
The African Book Fair by Soma Nami Books, which is a first of its kind in the country, aims to showcase this vast variety of African books from across genres and across countries from Anglophone Africa to those translated to English from Lusophone, Francophone and Arabophone Africa.