We pride ourselves in the fact that all our platforms are free entry and as such accessible and open to every person interested to attend.
Annual Book Festival
The book festival takes place annually in September in Gaborone and features both local and other African authors. We focus on issues emanating from featured authors’ books, topical, and current affairs. Our programme consists of panels, conversations, book talks, book chats, and book launches. The global pandemic has not slowed us down. In 2020 and 2021, GBF was fully online. The festival brings together readers, publishers, opinion leaders, content creators, booksellers, and the curious.
School Outreach Programme
The GBF School Literacy program targets students from low-income, highly populated, indigenous, and hard to reach areas, who under normal circumstances and due to the economic status of their parents and guardians, do not have access to books to read for leisure, and knowledge acquisition. Children in these schools’ main contact with books are mainly limited to curriculum-based books. We donate new books and the majority of them are for pleasure reading. Another important day in our calendar is the annual World Read Aloud Day. In 2020 were reached 17 000 students across 5 districts in Botswana and in 2021 the activity was canceled due to the pandemic. As GBF turns 5 years in 2022, our target is to read aloud to 50,000 primary school learners across Botswana.
Quarterly Book Nights***
This platform is mainly meant to highlight and celebrate the work of Batswana authors through talks, conversations, and presentations followed by book sales. When an opportunity arises, we also use the platform to host guest authors. The book nights take place every quarter.
GBF Winter Series
The annual #GBFWinterSeries is basically a series of talks, chats, readings that we use as a curtain-raiser for the GBF annual festival. This is a strictly online event.
Book Nights***
This platform is mainly meant to highlight and celebrate the work of Batswana authors through talks, conversations, and presentations followed by book sales. Where opportunities arise, we will also use the platform to host guest authors, especially other African authors. The book night take place every quarter.
Monthly Book Reviews***
This takes the shape of a traditional book club set up, just with non-permanent members. We prescribe a book and readers and that interested reserve their seats. The trust runs the logistics for the meeting and advertises the event through our social media platforms. Where possible, we also invite an author to their book review meeting.
***Due to the pandemic, these platforms have been temporarily suspended. But be assured that we will be back as the world opens up!