Literary enthusiasts, curious readers and budding storytellers across Botswana are preparing for a celebration of culture as the Gaborone Book Festival returns Aug. 20-22.
Founded in late 2017 by sisters Keikantse and Kenanao Phele, the inaugural flagship festival was held in September 2018. Eight years on, the venture remains an example of civic responsibility. Hosted at the National Museum, the three-day event will transform the capital’s cultural landscape through literary exchange, critical reflection and creative discovery.
The festival opens Thursday evening with panel discussions and live poetry performances. This year’s theme centers on the environment and its influence on human life and creative expression. Organizers are stepping beyond conventional literary boundaries to ensure diverse voices, incorporating filmmakers, visual artists, culinary chefs and other creative practitioners whose work is shaped by environmental concerns. The festival aims to spark multi-layered conversations that resonate with a wide audience.
The environmental focus arrives as Botswana marks its diamond jubilee, celebrating 60 years of independence. The festival will serve as a forum to reflect on this milestone. Conversations throughout the weekend will tap into national dialogues about the country’s current trajectory and future direction. By offering a shared platform to established and novice creators, the festival seeks to empower Batswana to continue writing their own stories, reinforcing literature as an essential pillar of national discourse.
Accessibility and community empowerment remain central to the festival’s mandate, reflected in its location near public transportation hubs. A highlight of this year’s gathering is the dedicated children’s festival, featuring a writing workshop for about 50 young learners. Participants, drawn from primary and secondary schools in Gaborone and surrounding areas, have been selected from low-income, out-of-town and hard-to-reach communities. The initiative aims to cultivate creative confidence in young minds that might otherwise lack access to formal literary mentorship.
For avid readers and casual visitors, the gathering offers a physical space to discover new titles, engage with creative minds and expand reading horizons. Dedicated literary meeting spaces remain limited across the country, and the event fulfills a crucial need by reuniting authors, publishers, illustrators and audiences at one central gathering point.
The 2026 festival is staged in partnership with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Kirk Sides, an associate professor of English at the university, joins the sister team as co-curator.
The 2026 literary roster features celebrated local talent, many of whom are making their publishing debuts. Gothataone Moeng, the 2023-2024 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the short story collection “Call and Response,” appears alongside photographer Thalefang Charles; internationally acclaimed poet Phodiso Modirwa; Kenneth Middleton, who recently launched his debut cookbook; Angie Chuma; Priscillar Ndadi; and Pearl Stabile Ndovu. Joining these Batswana voices is internationally acclaimed novelist Sue Nyathi. Nyathi’s “The Polygamist,” originally published in 2012, was recently adapted for screen and distributed by Netflix.
The weekend culminates with an open book market at the National Museum grounds. Through Botswana’s first and only dedicated literary festival, the Phele sisters lead a charge that generations of Batswana have sought over the nation’s 60 years of existence: to keep telling stories.
