Every year with its readings, discussion and extensive Specials-programme, the international literature festival berlin (ilb) transforms Berlin into the capital of poetry and literary discourse. In response to the overwhelming response of the audience and media in past years, the 8th international literature festival berlin will take place from 24. September until 4. October 2008 at the “Haus der Berliner Festspiele” and will present the contemporary trends in international prose and poetry from around the world. Every year, more than 120 authors are invited to hold readings, meet colleagues, have close contact with the audience and discover the artistic and cultural landscape of Berlin.
The extensive festival programme will be further enhanced with supporting artistic, cinematic and musical supporting programme, as well as by a series of political discussions titled “Reflections”. Following the great success last year of the programme section “Focus Latin America” the emphasis this year will be “Focus Africa”. For this part of the programme African literature will be presented and there will be a discussion forum concerning the historical and political backgrounds of the African continent. In addition to a retrospective of the most important African writers of the past within the section “Speak, Memory”, and some readings of representatives of the older generation of contemporary African writers, a younger, less established generation of authors, whose texts have largely not yet been published or translated, will have the opportunity to speak. Because Africa is still an object of European imagination and projection, the self-definition as an instrument of post-colonial identity formation should be represented in different genres at the festival.

Jilna Shah from the department of Politics University of Bristol England, has spent a lot of time studying Development and African Politics und thus has discovered the diversity, complexity and richness of the African continent. In particular, said Jilna, “I am interested in the legacy of colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the nature of neo-colonialism today. As well as research into ‘Celebrity Colonialism’ as revived in 2005 by the Make Poverty History Campaign, I am conducting a study into how the mainstream British news media misrepresents Africa, by constructing an image of the continent that conforms to its European colonial image. After completing my degree, I intend to study International Law in London, and then work in the NGO sector"  Please click here to read her Research Report

By Gaanihu Nwokorie - EAC Correspondent -  Netherlands
Nigeria is a country of more than 140 million people and there are so many ethnic groups in the country. The three major groups are the Hausa’s, the Igbo's and the Yoruba's.  English language is classified as the Official language of doing business in Nigeria. I have nothing against having English as the official language but i am not happy that the Nigerian government and most of our citizens are not doing enough to help in promoting our indigenous languages.  As an Igbo man that is in Diaspora,  I find it very shameful that many fellow Igbos outside too find it difficult to teach their kids our native language. I reside in the Netherlands; every Dutch person understands and speaks Dutch. More than 78% of them also speak the English language; more than 50% speaks Deutsch (German) etc. Any child that grows up here in the Netherlands can speak Dutch very well because they learn it in school because that is the linguafranca.

By Kothari ML, Mehta LA
We are, world over, trapped in the tyranny of topsyturvy priorities. This unenviable state grips medicine too, so that our 5-star hospitals have patients who have money but no disease and the roadsides and the rural sides have patients who have disease/s but no money. There is an apart-hood that divides the rich from the poor. In Africa, this apart-hood divides the whites from the not-so-whites through the notorious apartheid meaning apart hood. This article is about Apartheid and Health, as it is found in South Africa, India and elsewhere. South Africa represents the epitome of what a powerful parasitic minority can do to a helpless majority: Relentless exploitation of the able-bodied non-whites to the point of disabling them, coupled with an intelligently executed denial of family hood, food, sanitation, education and medical care to the whole non-white population. The wants of the whites are pampered; the needs of the non-whites are denied.

A great book written by Ndaeyo Uko - Reseach/Compilation by Chris Ezeh
This book’s rare insight on media practice shakes conventional notions of the role and enabling environment of the modern press. "Romancing the Gun" rattles academic tradition by illustrating that Nigeria’s hard-hitting press has not only thrived better while military regimes were in power but that it actually welcomed and supported praetorian rule.

This compelling book draws its energy and depth from the combination of Ndaeyo Ulo’s engaging media practice in Nigeria, and his international education and academic career in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. It exposes the chasm between the armchair media scholarship of Westerns scholars and the damning reality of the media institutions in non-western societies. "Romancing the Gun" retells the history of the press in Nigeria, and confronts some of the issues that Nigeria’s brand of journalism and the country’s debased political system had driven into oblivion. One example is the letter-bomb death of prominent Nigerian editor and columnist, Dele Giwa, in 1986 that made headlines around the world.

This books asks some questions which the international and local media as well as scholars were ‘too polite to conceive and ask’ about the incident that shook the media world. One such burning question is: “what would a renowned journalist be expecting in a large envelope from a military dictator on a Saturday morning?”

By posing startling questions and querying conventional wisdom and mental habits, "Romancing the Gun" unveils the power and irresponsibility of the Nigerian press—one of the world’s freest presses—and provides crucial missing pieces in the puzzle of global media scholarship and practice.

By Jessie Ayamoh - EAC Correspondent - Cameroun
Collective marriage in Cameroon for the past months is gaining increasing importance especially in Muslim families who before depended on traditional and religious unions. The minister of Women Empowerment and the Family, Susan Bomback has succeeded in less than six months to unite close to one thousand couples in the South, Southwest, North, Northwest and Centre provinces of Cameroon who recently are experiencing the importance of legal marriage and encouraging their neighbors to abandon cohabitation. A Muslim faithful who has been a concubine for 11years affirms that such a union will enable her to have legitimate children. It took close a dozen years for her and her husband to decide on having a legitimate union because their limited finances did not permit them to invest in such a union which demanded an expensive celebration. Taking the decision to legally marry after so many years of courtship was triggered by the powerful sensitization programs on the importance of a legal union. The women were made to understand that traditional and religious marriage is good but legitimate union is beneficial and protects women and children.

By Jean Dassiam Fiawoumo
Several reports on the African economy have recently been published: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), reports of the UNO and the CIAN (French Council of investors in Africa) - It is astounding to note that, overall, their analysis all lead to one and even positive conclusion: on the whole, Africa is in a phase of economic revival and growth. Yet the media coverage of Africa and these reports remain invariably defeatist: "Not enough."  "Too little." "In spite of economic growth, food supply is precarious." "Economic growth is not enough to reduce poverty…" Yes, yes and a thousand times yes, there are problems on this continent that are numerous and must be treated. There is absolutely no question of overshadowing the human distress. But it is also necessary to point out the economic progress, especially when it is real and important. Then why not highlight the economic revival of Africa without systematically minimizing it to the point of overshadowing it completely? Especially when it is done in spite of the problems that undermine it and which could lead to the belief that any progress is impossible? There is a big difference between the reality, which, overall, is moving in the right direction, and the image that one continues tirelessly to attach to this continent. Here’s what came out of recently published reports: