Africa Ablaze: Poems and Prose Pieces of War and Civil Conflict

SOUTH AFRICAN PEN present Africa Ablaze.
SA PEN is affiliated to Pen International: promoting literature and defending freedom of expression.

Time: 9.30am
Venue: Upper RoomTown Hall
Tickets: £8
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AFRICA ABLAZE: POEMS AND PROSE PIECES OF WAR AND CIVIL CONFLICT
Presentation by Peter Hain MP of Patricia Schonstein’s latest anthology of poems and prose pieces, Africa Ablaze (2013), including those of Nelson Mandela, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, and Emperor Haile Selassi.
Peter also discusses Ad & Wal: Values, Duty, Sacrifice in Apartheid South Africa (2014) about his White South African parents who were jailed for trying to protect ant-apartheid activists. ‘A beguiling book that casts a light…on human motivation’ The Observer

Peter Hain, Queen Mary College London and University of Sussex, was raised in South Africa. In 1966 Peter’s family was forced into exile to Britain where he led a campaign against South African sports. He joined the Labour Party in 1977 and became a member of Tony Blair’s cabinet. He is the author or editor of sixteen books – including a biography of Nelson Mandela (2010).

TALKING TO A TREE
AE Ballakisten reads from his latest poetry collection with themes of conflict and decay: the rapid erosion of our humanity and threat to our already fragile world. Event includes an 85-seconds video World Peace, based on his poem of the same title.

AE Ballakisten, Harvard, MIT and LBS educated, is studying political theory at LSE. Raised in a South African coloured township, and present at the launch of the United Democratic Front in 1983, he participated in anti-apartheid protests in the late 1980’s. New South Africa captures the optimism associated with the release from prison of Nelson Mandela in 1990. His publications include Heap of Stones (2009). He presented the radio show Words Alive and executive produced two human rights films.

INTERVAL

BLOOD RIVER and CHASING THE DEVIL
Tim Butcher talks about his account of his journey overland from Lake Tanganyika and then down the Congo in Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart (topped 2007 Sunday Times bestseller list, shortlisted for awards including the Samuel Johnson Prize); and Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit (2011), his 350 mile trek through Sierra Leone and Liberia following a trail recounted in Graham Greene’s Journey Without Maps (1936).

Tim Butcher, English journalist, broadcaster and author, worked for The Daily Telegraph between 1990 and 2009, as leader writer, war correspondent for Africa, Bureau Chief and Middle East correspondent. He is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent, and has written for numerous British, US and international publications.

This event is sponsored by Broad Campden Quakers