YouTube Africa Reading Challenge Aims to Boost Profile of African Literature on Continent

YouTube has launched its first YouTube Africa Reading Challenge, an online reading marathon featuring authors, influencers and key opinion leaders across Africa.

In a bid to help popularise the work of African authors across the continent, the personalities will read extracts from The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, a novel by the African-born Nigerian poet Lola Shoneyin.

The novel emerged as the top choice by Africans in a Google Africa survey conducted last July, which asked social media followers which novel by an African author they would like to see read live on YouTube.

A total 40 people across Africa have since been selected to kick off the YouTube Africa Challenge, and will be reading from its pages, encouraging others to join them too.

Nitin Gajria, Google’s Managing Director for Africa says the company is extremely excited about the YouTube Africa Reading Challenge.

“Reading novels is such a critical skill and we hope this event will help fuel a reading culture on the continent, while also highlighting some of the exceptional literary works by African writers.”

With the hashtag #AfricaReads, bookworms can join the challenge by sharing a 10-second video on their social channels, reading the same book, and nominating their friends to do the same.

Free access to read The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is available for one month via the OneRead app.

This offer is aimed specifically at those eager to join the challenge, but who don’t have access to a physical copy of the book. They simply have to download the app from the App Store, and find the book under ‘News and Updates’.