“When literacy organisations, libraries and communities come together, their impact multiplies like waves gathering to form a powerful tide.
“When we act together, each partner, each parent, each storyteller, we create momentum that one of us could not achieve alone,” said festival founder Pumla Makeleni, setting the tone for the 2026 Ibuyambo Book Festival.
The festival returns with urgency and purpose on February 20 and 21 at Guga S’thebe in Cape Town.
Over two packed days, writers, translators, publishers, scholars, educators, creatives and young readers will gather in Langa for a programme designed to challenge the status quo and celebrate the power of African languages.
In a country with eleven official languages, only 2% of commercially published books are in indigenous African languages. The result is stark. Millions of children…
