One of our greatest joys in this work is being able to reach young readers. We love being able to publish books that educate, entertain, and bring compassion into the world. Our authors are truly the greatest. Our love of kid lit meant that there was that at least one of our #ReadingAfrica events would involve us talking about and championing books for young readers.
We’re thrilled about the panel that we were able to assemble for this fantastic conversation! You can watch a recording of the event below.
Panelists
Ekiuwa Aire. Ekiuka is the author of Idia of the Benin Kingdom and founder of Our Ancestories, a publishing and education company dedicated to “sharing stories on pre-colonial African legends and provide engaging activities for kids to explore specific African cultures.”
Hannes Barnard. A South African-born author of both English and Afrikaans novels. He debuted in 2019 with the YA novel, Halley se komeet, which he translated into English as Halley’s Comet, which we’re proud to publish next year. In 2020, Wolk, his apocalyptic YA adventure, was released, and coming up in 2022 is his crime novel, die wet van Gauteng
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. A literary translator, primarily of children’s books, working from German, Russian and Arabic into English. She has translated 28 books, including fiction and non-fiction from Germany, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, Switzerland and Syria. She is also a co-editor of the World Kid Lit blog
Caroline Kurtz. From the age of five, Caroline grew up in Ethiopia, the child of Presbyterian Church missionaries. The family lived in the church’s most remote mission station in the mountainous regions of southwestern Ethiopia near the town of Maji. As an adult, she and her husband returned to the continent as teachers and working with war refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan. Her experiences were detailed in the memoirs A Road Called Down on Both Sides and Today is Tomorrow, both published by us. With her sister Jane, she founded Ready Set Go Books for early Ethiopian readers. Ready Set Go has now printed and distributed 70,000 books in Ethiopia.
