Local author gets international recognition
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday November 25, 2024 11:52
Monagare has published three books; A Pillar of Hope, Kofi Annan: An African Dream and I Am A Good Mother. In an interview with Arts&Culture, she explained that her first book titled, A Pillar Of Hope, is a book of quotes by the fourth President of Botswana Seretse Khama Ian Khama.
She added that her second book, Kofi Annan: An African Dream, was about the vision, mission, work and achievements of the late Kofi Annan aligned with his quotes. Her third book, I Am A Good Mother, is a series of motherhood guiding and helping mothers and guardians navigate raising kids in homes and outside homes. “The Kofi Annan’ book has been successfully accepted in Ghana and the latest news I got is the book is always off shelves. I was also invited to the Pa Gya Annual Literature Festival in Accra in October this year. This was the best moment of my life as I officiated as a moderator in the book launch during the festival. As a creative, I felt empowered and energised to benchmark in improving our creative industry. I also had an interview and did the book signing and sales at Alliance Francaise d’Accra in their programme titled, Conversation with The Author. In this interview I spoke about my book and the creative industry in our country, which is at a satisfactory level as creatives like writers and poets are getting the recognition they need,” she said. She further stated that it is very important to align with African creatives as that has the power for international or global stage calls. She added that Botswana has the best content and creatives also saying all they must do is to take it out there as that is their representation. Monagare also highlighted that it is important to attend creative workshops and events such as book launches to support one another and build networks.
She added that the creative industry was all about supporting one another and building work relations that can promote their work. “Be at any event of creatives because you never know where your network will take you. I have a testimony about networking as it put my work and me on the map. After attending two events in Ghana, I also headed to Rwanda for the African Writers Conference where I was a panellist in discussing Children's Literature in Africa. This was an eye-opening conference as I realised as creatives we need more content in favour of children. We need to write and read stories to the children. Children's literature is very important, as it is a tool that can be used to nurture children. Book reading builds their confidence in children and this already promotes leadership skills whilst they are still young,” she said.