ACTIVITIES & PROJECTS

Committee Meeting

The Committee last met at the Dakar Congress in Senegal in July 2007. The Congress was immediately followed by the Women Writers’ Conference.

The next meeting will be at the September, 2008 PEN Congress in Bogota, Colombia.

News

Next IPWWC conference

Planning is underway for the next IPWWC conference. We hope to hold it in Mumbay, India in November 2010 - to be hosted by the All India Centre. It will be very exciting to hold a women writers' conference in one of the great centres of literature and in the Asia and Pacific region.

Dakar IPWWC Conference 11-12 July 2007

We began our conference with a literary evening at Le Kadjinol in the centre of Dakar. Seventeen people chose to read, providing us with a really rich beginning for the conference. The dinner was delicious and the setting glorious – a roof terrace with sculptures, a pond and seating. The dining room was under cover, but just as congenial. The readers included the mc for the night Rahmatou Seck, Maliya Sililo, Frank Mackay Anim- Appiah, Dorothea Smartt, Doreen Baingana,  Toyin Adewale, Nicole Barrier, Philo Ikonya, Assiatou Cisse, Chiara Macconi, Nedda G. de Anhalt, Lucina Kathmann, Teresa Cadete, Sarah Lawson, Muthoni Likimani, Cornelius Gulere, Rita Dahl. It was wonderful to hear some of Africa’s most extraordinary writers as well as many fine writers from Europe and Central America.

The conference proper took place at the Ngor Diorama Hotel which had fine views of the Dakar coast. Introductory speeches by Judith Buckrich (Chair of the Committee), Elisabeth Nordgren (PEN Board)and Lucina Kathmann (Vice-President of PEN) and Rahmatou Seck of Senegalese PEN were followed by an agenda review from Karen Efford of the PEN office.

Thematic papers were then given by Zeinab Koumanthio Diallo (Guinean PEN) on African Women Writers; the distance travelled, and Maliya Sililo (Zambia) on the Vision behind the promoting of reading and writing among women. This was followed by discussion on the current situation and the distance travelled facilitated by Toyin Adewale (Nigeria).

Two afternoon sessions covered an introduction to the International PEN three year plan for Africa given by Frank Geary and Karen Efford of the PEN office, presentations by Sokhna Bengha of Senegal PEN on Creating the next generation of women writers and Ekbal Baraka of Egypt PEN on the role of the IPWWC in Africa. This was followed by a discussion on the role of the IPWWC in the African Regional Plan.

The last session on Women Writers Committee in Africa: Literature as a tool for social change  was facilitated by Maureen Sulumba of Malawi PEN.

The group then split into workshop groups for  an hour to discuss WWC and membership , WWC and activities  and WWC and structures.

Plans for future action in Africa had been discussed previously after IPWWC congress and included ideas for regional workshops, anthologies, blogs and further meetings. Regional representatives were chosen to follow these ideas.

Second Central Asian Women Writers’ Conference
August 2007

This conference was organised by Rita Dahl and hosted by the Finnish PEN Centre. Reports are available in the IPWWC newsletter “Network” on the Publications page of this website.

2007 International PEN Asia and Pacific Regional Conference
February  2007, Hong Kong

Women writers meet in Hong Kong, January 2007

Two meetings were held to look at the particular problems of  women writers in China and the region.  A report of the meeting is available in the IPWWC newsletter ‘Network’ on the Publications page of this website.

June 2005 Central Asian Women Writers' Forum

For full reports of the Bishkek meetings see reports.