Casa África's Antonio Lozano Reading Club reached its 100th book this past week and its head, Ángeles Jurado, received an award in Asturias for her tireless promotion of African literature in Spain Today I wanted to...
Today I wanted to bring you an atypical article because I found what I am about to tell you, firstly, and then to reproduce for you, exciting. Perhaps you don't know that at Casa África we have a reading club. It has been called, for some years now, Casa África's Antonio Lozano Reading Club. The name pays homage to its founder, a great writer and a great friend of our institution, Antonio Lozano, who sadly passed away and who left an indelible mark on all those who love African literature in this country.
Along with Antonio Lozano, from the first book that made a good number of literature lovers discover Africa and eager to discover African literature, was Ángeles Jurado, journalist and writer, technician of Casa África's Media Department.
Ángeles, or Angie, as everyone knows her, has been the tireless driving force behind this initiative in our institution, she has been a constant light in all the work of the institution to promote and defend literature made in Africa or by people who love Africa, a reading club that has sought to make people from our city and our island travel to the continent with each of the books that have been read, first, and then commented on collectively, often even with the presence of their authors, publishers or translators. Sometimes, these journeys have not only been made in the imagination, but have materialised in shared visits to the continent, to set foot on its soil and get to know its people first hand.
Casa África was inaugurated in 2007 (although it was created in 2006, so it is approaching 20 years old). In all this time, more than 200 books have been published in its three collections (Literature, Essays and History and Politics), coordinated by the Media Library and Web Area of Estefanía Calcines. From short stories to novels, history books or pan-Africanist classics such as Cheikh Anta Diop, the institution's commitment was to translate into Spanish books that had not been translated before and also to offer a platform to Africanists in our country. With each book, an open window to an African reality.
Along with the publication of books and a cycle called African Letters, which has allowed us to bring African authors to Spain and the Canary Islands, Casa África's reading club reached its 100th book last week. As Angie herself tells it, that's 100 trips to the continent.
In addition, this week, an Asturian foundation called Pájaro Azul (Blue Bird) awarded Ángeles Jurado the V Prize for African Literature and Letters 2024. The award, and I quote, "recognises her contribution to bringing Spanish readers closer to African cultural wealth and intellectual heritage, through the translation and publication, in collaboration with other publishers, of the most relevant titles by both established authors and new creators of African literature, which is complemented by the African Letters Programme and the Antonio Lozano Reading Club".
Yesterday I was sent, and found it deeply moving to read, the speech that Ángeles Jurado read in Oviedo, the city where she was presented with this award and recognition, which she generously did not hesitate to describe as "a collective achievement". I wanted to bring you some extracts from this speech so that you can enjoy how beautiful it is to read someone who writes with passion and from the heart, with a deep love for Africa, for her work and with an unwavering dedication and commitment to literature.
I have loved reading since I was a child, but I now know that the literature I grew up with and which showed me the world started from a rather limited vision of reality, from a mostly male and overwhelmingly western canon. Defoe or Stevenson opened before me a wonderful universe, from which I will never be able or want to erase Captain Nemo, Mr Scrooge or the Bennet sisters. Now I understand, however, that it was also a tiny universe, with many omissions, shadows and ignorance. A universe lacking in puzzle pieces, lacking in melanin, crippled in sounds, lame in experiences, blind to ideas, colours and, above all, stories that have been whispered, shouted and written for millennia all over the planet. A universe in which Kaku Anansé, Dabilly, Queen Pokú, Sunyata Keita and Rami also have their place.
(...) African literatures have broadened and expanded my mind in such a way that I can no longer imagine the world around me without adding them to the landscape. In fact, to be more precise, without them colouring, contaminating and explaining almost everything. They have turned many of my dogmas upside down, planted questions everywhere and turned my existence upside down, putting unforgettable people and experiences in my path. My intention today is none other than to vindicate the herd, the group, the network, the coral reef that we lovers of African literature form.
(...) Promoting African literatures would not be possible without African literatures. That is to say: without authors, without publishers, without literary festivals and initiatives such as this meeting, without translators, without cultural agents, without institutions such as Casa África (where I work), without bookshops, without academia, without libraries, without journalists and, of course, without reading clubs and all the people who appreciate and share African literature. I believe that, in our country, we are a rather small group of enthusiastic, eccentric people with a thirst for knowledge. People who are outraged when the most reputable lists of literary recommendations leave out almost an entire continent. People who seek to take what they read to the sensory: to savour atieké, to dance rumba, to engage in projects, to meet other people who seem - at first glance - radically different from us, to refresh themselves with bisap, to illuminate everyday life with cowries or indigo or wax, to travel south like migrant birds. I believe we are a people who are aware of the dramas hidden in the nooks and crannies of life, but unafraid of discouragement. People hungry for justice. Curious people. I speak, at least, of the people I am lucky enough to know through book clubs, publishing projects, literary festivals and the many pleasures that African literatures put, put and I hope will put many times in my way. For them I speak of a collective achievement.
To conclude, Ángeles Jurado ended her speech with a quote from the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina. He wrote: "We live the rest of our lives in the absolute conviction that, if we follow the stone tiles of certainty, there will be something deliberate that will make everything fit into its place".
It ended with this conclusion: "I don't think we can glimpse many certainties in these times, but it also seems to me that authors from the African continent, its diaspora and its ramifications across the globe, make me, at least, feel that I am walking on tiles, perhaps not made of certainties, but that make it seem easier to fit into the world. Thank you for being part of my tribe.
How proud I am to see the passion with which people like her face their daily work. And my most sincere congratulations to Ángeles and, by extension, to the whole Casa África team, for the prize, for those 100 books in the reading club and for all the work that this passionate tribe still has to do to make the literature of this marvellous continent known.