The Steve Biko Foundation launched the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in 2000. [1]
12 September 2010 marked the 33rd anniversary of the murder of Steve Biko. In commemoration, the Steve Biko Foundation hosted Professor Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple , in South Africa for a series of events to celebrate the life and works of Steve Biko.
The 33rd anniversary commemoration consisted of two events. The first. "An Evening with Alice Walker", took place on 7 September at the State Theatre in Pretoria. Along with readings by Professor Walker, the event featured South African artists. The second component was the 11th Annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture, held at Jameson Hall at the University of Cape Town on Thursday 9 September.
Since the year 2000 the lecture has been delivered annually by the following speakers.
Year | Delivered by | Title | University |
---|---|---|---|
2000 | Professor Njabulo Ndebele | "Iph'Indlela? Finding Our Way into The Future" | University of Cape Town |
2001 | Professor Zakes Mda | "Biko's Children" | University of Cape Town |
2002 | Professor Chinua Achebe | "Fighting Apartheid with Words" | University of Cape Town |
2003 | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o | "Recovering our Memory: South Africa in the Black Imagination" | University of Cape Town |
2004 | Former President Nelson Mandela | "Ten Years of Democracy:1994-2004" | University of Cape Town |
2005 | Dr Mamphela Ramphele | "Citizenship as Stewardship" | University of Cape Town |
2006 | Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu | "South Africa: A Scintillating Success Waiting to Happen" | University of Cape Town |
2007 | Former President Thabo Mbeki | "30th Commemoration of Steve Biko's Death" | University of Cape Town |
2008 | Trevor Manuel | "Energising Democracy:Rights and Responsibilities" | University of Cape Town |
2009 | Tito Mboweni | "Reflections on Some Economic & Social Development in South Africa in the Past 15 Years" | University of Cape Town |
2010 | Professor Alice Walker | "Coming to See You Since I was Five:An American Poet's Connection to the South African Soul" | University of Cape Town |
2011 | Sir Sydney Kentridge | "Evil Under The Sun" | University of Cape Town |
2012 | Professor Ben Okri | "Biko and the Tough Alchemy of Africa" | University of Cape Town |
2013 | Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma | "Pan Africanism and African Renaissance" | University of Cape Town |
2014 | Navi Pillay | "Advancing Human Rights in South Africa and the World" [2] | University of Cape Town |
2015 | Joaquim Alberto Chissano | "The Black Consciousness Movement in The History of The Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa: Myth or Reality" [3] | UNISA |
2016 | Angela Davis | [4] | UNISA |
2017 | Ibbo Mandaza | "Pan-Africanism, Class and the State in Southern Africa" [5] | UNISA |
2018 | President Cyril Ramaphosa | [6] | UNISA |
2020 | Reverend Al Sharpton | [7] | UNISA |
"A young man with a sharp intellect and flair for organisation and leadership, Biko realised the need to raise the sagging morale of black people, to raise their consciousness and self-esteem; in his own words to 'overcome the psychological oppression of black people by whites'." -Chinua Achebe [8]
"Steve Biko, whom we have come to honour, is among this great gallery of people whose work and devotion have impacted those beyond the native shores, and which make it possible for us even to talk about the possibilities of a new Africa out of the colonial ashes of latter-day empires." - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o [9]
"History from time to time, brings to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment,who cohere the wishes and inspirations of the oppressed.Such was Steve Biko,a fitting product of his time;a proud representative of the reawakening of a people."- Nelson Mandela [10]
Bantu Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, is translated into 100 languages from around the world.
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the so-called "African Trilogy"; later novels include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In the West, Achebe is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
The Black People's Convention (BPC) was a national coordinating body for the Black Consciousness movement of South Africa. Envisaged as a broad-based counterpart to the South African Students' Organisation, the BPC was active in organising resistance to apartheid from its establishment in 1972 until it was banned in late 1977.
In June 1962 a conference of African literature in the English language, the first African Writers Conference, was held at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. Officially called a "Conference of African Writers of English Expression", it was sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Mbari Club in association with the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of Makerere, whose director was Gerald Moore.
The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003.
African literature is literature from Africa, either oral ("orature") or written in African and Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of pre-colonial African literature can be traced back to at least the fourth century AD. The best-known is the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings."
Lewis Nkosi was a South African writer, who spent 30 years in exile as a consequence of restrictions placed on him and his writing by the Suppression of Communism Act and the Publications and Entertainment Act passed in the 1950s and 1960s. A multifaceted personality, he attempted multiple genre for his writing, including literary criticism, poetry, drama, novels, short stories, essays, as well as journalism.
Helon Habila Ngalabak is a Nigerian novelist and poet, whose writing has won many prizes, including the Caine Prize in 2001. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before moving in 2002 to England, where he was a Chevening Scholar at the University of East Anglia, and now teaches creative writing at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Simon E. Gikandi is a Kenyan Literature Professor and Postcolonial scholar. He is the Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University. He is perhaps best known for his co-editorship of The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. He has also done important work on the modern African novel, and two distinguished African novelists: Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. In 2019 he became the president of the Modern Language Association.
Elleke Boehmer, FRSL, FRHistS is Professor of World Literature in English at the University of Oxford, and a Professorial Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College. She is an acclaimed novelist and a founding figure in the field of Postcolonial Studies, internationally recognised for her research in colonial and postcolonial literature and theory. Her main areas of interest include the literature of empire and resistance to empire; sub-Saharan African and South Asian literatures; modernism; migration and diaspora; feminism, masculinity, and identity; nationalism; terrorism; J. M. Coetzee, Katherine Mansfield, and Nelson Mandela; and life writing.
Okechukwu "Okey" Ndibe is a novelist, political columnist, and essayist of Igbo ethnicity. Ndibe was born in Yola, Nigeria. He is the author of Arrows of Rain and Foreign Gods, Inc., two critically acclaimed novels published in 2000 and 2014 respectively.
Established in 1998, The Steve Biko Foundation (SBF) is a community development organisation in South Africa. The organisation is inspired by the late anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko (1946–1977).
Micere Githae Mugo is a playwright, author, activist, instructor and poet from Kenya. She is a literary critic and professor of literature in the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University. She was forced into exile in 1982 from Kenya during the Daniel Arap Moi dictatorship for activism and moved to teach in Zimbabwe, and later the United States. Mwalimu Mugo teaches Orature, Literature, and Creative Writing. Her publications include six books, a play co-authored with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and three monographs. She has also edited journals and the Zimbabwean school curriculum. The East African Standard listed her among the 100 most influential people in Kenya in 2002.
Obi Wali was a minority rights activist, politician, distinguished senator, literary scholar, and an orator from Nigeria. Among his achievements, he fought for the cause of the Ikwerre ethnic minorities and argued that African literature should be written in African languages.
James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topics—including anthropology, archaeology, history, politics, economics, development studies, gender studies, literature, theatre, film studies, and the humanities and social sciences generally—and its authors include leading names such as Bethwell Ogot and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
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The Port Harcourt Book Festival is an annual literary event in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, organised by the Rainbow Book Club and endorsed by the Rivers State Government since 2008. The Garden City Literary Festival, which is currently known as the Port Harcourt Book Festival was founded by Governor Amaechi of Rivers State, Hundreds of literary fans flock to the Garden City every year for this six-day event, which includes a book fair, writers' workshops, and a variety of other activities. In the past the Festival has been attended by recognized authors and has hosted a number of celebrities.
Chinua Achebe Literary Festival is an annual literary event held in honour of Nigerian writer and literary critic — Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart (1958), in commemoration and celebration of his works and immense contributions in the literary field.
Steve Biko (1946–1977) was a South African anti-Apartheid political activist.