Shailja Patel named the 2009 Guest Writer, Nordic Africa Institute

Pambazuka contributor, Shailja Patel, has just been named the 2009 Guest Writer at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden.

The programme has previously hosted two guest writers, Ama Ata Aidoo from Ghana, and Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa.

The raison d'être behind the guest writer grant is the conviction that knowledge of Africa is not gained only from social science analysis and facts, and that literature can significantly add another language and meaning, and illustrate the diversity. The purpose of the grant is three-fold:

Firstly, to provide an opportunity to sit and write, away from daily chores, teaching or other (the Nordic Africa Institute is also not a teaching institution);

Secondly, to make possible readings to audiences in Sweden, and one or two other Nordic countries by visits to those countries

Thirdly, to add by their presence to the intellectual and cultural atmosphere of the Nordic Africa Institute with its researchers and other staff, guests, guest researchers and scholarship students.