Chinua Achebe Literary Festival
Chinua Achebe Literary Festival is an annual literary event held in honour of Nigerian writer and literary critic — Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart (1958), in commemoration and celebration of his works and immense contributions in the literary field. Chinua Achebe lived between 16 November 1930 to 21 March 2013, when he died in Massachusetts, United States. The literary festival was initiated in 2016, three years after Achebe's death, by award-winning Nigerian writer, journalist, and Igbo-language activist Izunna Okafor, who is also Anambra State's Coordinator of Society of Young Nigerian Writers, the literary body that organizes the event. Since its inception, the event has been held annually on Chinua Achebe's date of birth (16 November) at the Prof. Kenneth Dike Central E-Library in Awka, the capital city of Anambra State, Achebe's home state. Prior to the event each year, the organizers open and publicize a "Call For Submissions" on various online literary platforms and magazines, for writers to write and submit poems and essays in honour of Achebe, which they thereafter publish as an anthology, known as the "Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology". The annual anthology is usually published and unveiled on day of the literary festival, and