Kenyan, Ugandan creatives win global recognition
Friday January 21 2022
Kenyan thespian John Sibi-Okumu. PHOTO | COURTESY
Kenyan thespian, media personality and playwright John Sibi-Okumu has been awarded the Carthage Theatre Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. At a ceremony in Tunis, Sibi-Okumu was honoured for his “services to theatre”.
Hosted by the government of Tunisia every two years since 1983, the Carthage Theatre award celebrates the world of stage acting. Over 100 theatrical performances were presented at the 22nd edition of the festival last month.
A multi-talented artist and wordsmith, Sibi-Okumu, 58, has featured in international films, most notably The First Grader, in 2010, and the award-winning movie The Constant Gardener in 2005.
More recently he plays a lawyer in the TV show Crime and Justice, a Showmax Original Series.
Ugandan- born author Beatrice Akello Hofmann was announced the winner of the Eyelands Book Awards last month. The award is for her historical fiction memoir Drudgeries for Feat: Identifying and Leveraging Opportunities in a Foreign Country.
Drudgeries for Feat book cover. PHOTO | POOL
Eyelands Book Awards is an international contest by the Eyelands literary magazine and Strange Days Books Publishing of Greece.
Akello moved to Germany in 1999.
Drudgeries for Feat is based on Akello’s diaspora experiences. In it, she describes the uphill and often lonely road of an African woman trying make a successful life in Europe while tackling discrimination, cultural disparities and the breakup of her marriage.
Akello’s migrant story was also part of the 2018 anthology she co-authored titled The Perfect Migrant – How to Achieve a Successful Life in the Diaspora.