- guardian.co.uk,
- Wednesday April 27 2005 15:06 BST
The cover of Book Aid's booklet, written by Alexander McCall Smith
Visitors to this year's Hay festival will be asked to contribute to a giant 'Hay stack' of books for readers in Africa. The charity Book Aid International is calling for books either by African authors or published in Africa to be left on a pile in the main festival courtyard, which they hope will grow into a huge visual landmark over the course of the festival. The books will be collected at the end of the festival and sent to disadvantaged readers in Africa.
Book Aid suggest that would-be donors look at the list of Africa's top 100 books (see link, below), published by the African Review of Books, to make their choice. The list encompasses novels from every corner of the continent and includes new titles, such as the Orange Prize-shortlisted Purple Hibiscus by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, and classics such as Helon Habila's Waiting for an Angel. The list also covers short stories, poetry, children's books and biography. The charity recommends the Africa Book Centre and the African Books Collective (below) as sources for buying the books.
The initiative is supported by Alexander McCall Smith, the bestselling author of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which is set in Botswana. The booklet promoting the work of Book Aid is written by McCall Smith in the voice of his heroine, Precious Ramotswe, and features the kind of colourful illustrations familiar from the covers of his books.
Book Aid is also seeking support for its latest appeal - a Reverse Book Club. Designed to look like the kind of 'book club' usually seen on the back of Sunday supplements, the twist is that members of the Reverse Book Club get four books for £5 and never receive any of them. Their donation of £5 per month, however, can provide a struggling school with 48 books in a year.
Book Aid International, which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, works in 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Palestine, providing over half a million books and journals each year to libraries, hospitals, refugee camps and schools. The charity is also supporting the reconstruction of libraries in Sri Lanka which were damaged or destroyed by the Asian tsunami.
