2014 'Africa Writes' Festival - Interview with Sheila Ruiz

In case you haven't heard, there's an exciting festival coming up in London next week. It's called 'Africa Writes'.

We interviewed Sheila who is very much involved with this project to give us a greater insight to what the festival is all about and also took the opportunity to quiz her on being a focused female acheiving goals!

Sheila Ruiz, 32, is Programme Manager for the Royal African Society (RAS), a membership organisation which promotes a better understanding of Africa in the UK and throughout the world. At the RAS, Sheila heads the extensive programme of events, which includes two annual festivals of African literature and film - Africa Writes and Film Africa. Prior to the RAS, Sheila was the Communications and Programming Consultant for the Africa Centre and previously worked as a freelance events producer for various community arts projects in London. Sheila holds an MA in African Studies and a BA in History from SOAS. She is of mixed Spanish/Equato-Guinean heritage and is bilingual in Spanish and English - she has a passion for dance and music, and has performed with a number of groups, including the London Lucumi Choir. You can find her on twitter @SheilaRuiz

What exactly is 'Africa Writes'? Africa Writes is the Royal African Society’s annual literature and book festival in association with the British Library. Launched in 2012, every year Africa Writes showcases established and emerging talent from Africa and the Diaspora in what is now the UK’s biggest celebration of contemporary African writing. Africa Writes 2014 will bring together over 50 authors, poets, publishers, critics and experts for an exciting three-day festival programme, including book launches, readings, talks, panel discussions, performances, children and young people’s workshops, family activities, and an international book fair. This third edition of Africa Writes has a special focus on women writers, with our poetry evening on Friday 11 July featuring London’s Young Poet Laureate Warsan Shire among others, and our headline event on Saturday 12 July with Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghana's foremost novelist, playwright, poet, academic and former Education Minister. This year's festival also aims to reflect the dynamic changes that are taking place in contemporary African writing. We have sessions addressing the development of new types of texts and narratives, including sci fi, travel writing and genre fiction; our publishing panel will discuss the business of publishing books for a wider readership, looking at the rise of popular genre fiction, such as romance and crime novels; and we're also hosting a session on African Diaspora writers who move between the worlds of fiction, poetry, drama and beyond, crossing and pushing new literary and artistic boundaries. Our programme is a testament to the fact that today’s African writers are broadening and challenging the very notion of ‘African literature’ and we're unpacking that with our different events and discussions.

How did the idea of Africa Writes first come about? Who started it? What's your role within the festival? Africa Writes came about as a result of conversations within the Royal African Society and between the RAS and other key partners. When I joined the RAS in September 2011, I pitched the idea of hosting an annual literature festival, which was something the Society had already been contemplating for some time. This also coincided with Pearson's plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the African Writers Series in 2012, so we joined forces with them along with The Caine Prize to bring together the inaugural Africa Writes festival. Africa Writes 2012 had the wonderful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as the headline event and the festival was a complete success, so from then on the RAS committed to hosting the festival on an annual basis. My role as RAS Programme Manager is to lead on the curation of the festival programme as well as to build collaborative relationships with our partners, including our funders and sponsors and other literary and cultural institutions working to develop African literature and writers. Africa Writes is really the result of a collective effort and a host of organisations and individuals are to be thanked for making the festival happen year on year. Africa Writes 2014 has been made possible through the financial support of Arts Council England, Scib Nigeria, and The University of London's Centre of African Studies. Other 2014 festival partners and supporters include The British Museum, The Caine Prize for African Writing, Kwani Trust, Commonwealth Writers, British Council, Africa39 , English PEN, Cassava Republic, Kwani Trust, SIDENSI, Spora Stories, TEDxEuston, Worldreader, African Reading Group, Black Reading Group, Black Book News and Afrikult. Do you think more can be expected from African writers? I think contemporary African writers are some of the most exciting writers in the world and this is evidenced by the growing number of African and Diaspora writers who are coming up and making their mark on the global literary scene. Very often we look at African writers, filmmakers and other types of creatives through the prism of social responsibility and I think that is very limiting and damaging to the development of their respective art forms. This is not to say that I believe African writers should disengage from politics or the many social issues that affect the continent. Quite the opposite - I believe all writing is political, whether or not that may be the writer's explicit intention. My problem lies with imposing such social responsibility - and expectations - on African writers. As the brilliant Mukoma wa Ngũgĩ has rightly pointed out, "we have to allow African literature to be many things if we are going to have a vibrant and growing literary tradition". I am all in support of developing and growing Africa's literary tradition and I strongly believe we should allow our writers to write and be whatever they wish to be. And our role - as readers, publishers, critics, and curators - will be to respond to such new writing in an open and progressive dialogue. It is only through this approach that we will get the plethora of voices and richness of writing we will be proudest of. What are your thoughts on African women needing to be more empowered? I think all women, not just African women, could be further empowered. Patriarchy and sexism affect all women in all parts of the world in different guises and I believe we should be working to educate our young girls and boys to do away with such malign power structures. I don't subscribe to the idea that African women are at the bottom of the patriarchal social pyramid, suffering without agency or choice. I see African women as some of the most resilient human beings in the world and also see them as agents of change, in spite of the many obstacles and forms of oppression they still face. We are very far from reaching a satisfactory point where African girls and women have adequate access to education, healthcare, and other basic human rights, but I know there are many inspiring African women working on the ground to empower themselves and each other. When I think about this kind of work, my heart fills with joy as I know progress is being made. But we have a very long way to go still and much more needs to be done. What qualities do you think define a well rounded female? When I think of a well rounded female, I think of the many girlfriends I have whom I admire so much. These women are all successful professionals, great mums, supportive friends and much more. They don't all possess the same set of qualities - in fact, they come from very different backgrounds and walks of life - but they are united by the fact that they are all multi-faceted individuals. And I use the word 'individual' here intentionally because so much of what we are as 'women' is determined by the outside world. As Toni Morrison said during her in-conversation event at Hay Festival 2014, "we need to remember that we are our best thing". Before being a mother, a sister, a friend, a lover, we need to be ourselves. And it's vital that we define that in our own terms.

Have you met any like-minded people along the way that have inspired or encouraged you? I'm inspired and very much indebted to the empowering women (and men!) who, throughout my life and to this present day, have encouraged me to accept and love myself and to just to be me, wholly and unapologetically. I'm also very much influenced by older people who have shared their wisdom, their successes and failures with me, from which I have learnt a lot. Lastly, I'm continually inspired by the many writers, filmmakers, musicians, dancers and artists whose imagination and work challenges me to pause and think.

What are you passionate about? I'm passionate about many things, but first and foremost, love and the arts. I'm driven by love in all that I do. I work on projects that matter to me and that I hope will have a positive impact on the wider world. I find the arts incredibly exciting because they bring a different understanding to our reality. They present an alternative view to the official chronicling of events, humanising and highlighting issues that would otherwise fall under the radar. In the context of Africa, the importance of such alternative views cannot be underestimated. African writers, filmmakers and artists are giving the continent a voice, telling its many stories and contributing to the global conversation around it. Beyond my work, I also spend time singing and dancing and being in the company of my loved ones, all of which feeds my soul. Lastly, there's something Sheila would like to recommend to all FAR Book Club members... Ahead of Africa Writes 2014, we have worked on putting together a very special list of "50 Books by African Women Authors that Everyone Should Read", which we'd like to recommend to all FAR Book Club members. The list will be revealed in a blog post on the RAS' Gateway for Africa events listings site next week, so please keep an eye out for that! In the meantime, SAVE THE DATE for Africa Writes 2014, which will take place at The British Library from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 July. For more information on the festival programme and to book tickets, please visit our website.

#femaleallrounder