Join our platform where you can enjoy livestreaming, an interactive chat forum during the sessions and opportunities to network.

We will use a broadcast WhatsApp group to send you recordings of the presentations as they happen. A second WhatsApp group gives you the opportunity to chat during the sessions and ask the presenters questions.

Emily Dickinson’s poem reminds us that books and literature can open the world to readers, whatever their
circumstances.

A rich experience of literature of varying sorts is a springboard for literacy which can lay a foundation for all learning across a person’s life. Stories, told and read, can be the fuel that children use to develop language –
reading, writing and speaking – and more importantly, thinking, as they respond to what they read or have read to them. Literacy skills developed at an early age through exposure to literature forms the basis of a whole
range of literacy skills needed in later life to succeed academically and professionally.

However, in the South African context, access to literature is limited for most people. Almost 60% of South African homes have no books in them. Public and school libraries are under-resourced. Access to affordable
books, especially in indigenous languages, is a persistent problem in South Africa and our neighbouring countries.

At the conference, we aim to look at the complexities surrounding the development of literature, especially in indigenous languages, as well as access to reading materials within the African context, spanning from
childhood to adulthood. We also aim to celebrate research, initiatives and programmes that promote literature and reading.