Honest thoughts about the Frankfurt Book Fair 2026. It’s massive. In fact, it’s overwhelming! It’s like navigating an airport, no five. Five halls, each hall with three floors, and each floor rammed with people reminiscent of the London Underground. All there for one purpose, books! Never have we seen so many young people gathered in one place, excited about books. Owning, reading and dreaming. Whoever said young people don’t read hasn’t been to the Frankfurter Buchmesse and the organisers of such a massive feat should be very proud! Yet it’s this greatness that makes the near total absence of African books, authors and publishers so sobering and disappointing. “African countries - 3.1” the official programs directs you, but not a single African country to be found in Hall 3, Level 1. Why? The wrong question, nothing new. What can be done about it? That’s more exciting and where you and I come in. Calling black and African authors to contact us and join The Africa Stand to exhibit your books under one banner, in London and in Frankfurt, every year. Never again shall it be said that a whole continent’s voice was missing when the world’s readers gathered to listen. And you, dear reader, consider a black or African author when next you buy a book. Start here buff.ly/8dtbTKb #FrankfurtBookFair #TheAfricaStand #NoMoreExcuses

Just finished reading @SimuChigudu's memoir, 'Chasing Freedom' - tore through it in a few days. Have not read a book that made me THINK and FEEL as much as this in a long time. A brave, beautiful and bracing work by a brilliant writer not afraid to grapple with complexities and contradictions in personal and political life. I somehow felt more myself after reading it, better able to understand my own life and world after reading what Simukai shared of his.

Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 as a tribute to her father, who couldn't read or write. In 2018, she explained it was to give kids "early access to books". Now, over 325 million books have been gifted.