Growing up in the U.K., Sylvia Arthur did not read one African writer throughout her school years, even up to university. “That was a while ago. Things may have changed slightly, but not much,” she tells OkayAfrica in an interview.

“There are African writers who go way before Chinua Achebe. None of those people and our literature are generally acknowledged in the global literary canon,” she says, adding “When we celebrate our literature, we celebrate our writers, their work, and their stories.”

She decided to do something about that. In 2017, she founded the Accra-based Library of Africa and The African Diaspora [LOATAD]. The cultural institution is home to over four thousand books and is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and disseminating literature by writers of African descent from the late 19th century to the present day. It also has spaces for writing residencies, workshops, film screenings, and live music shows. Recently, Ghanaian artist Black Sherif shot a promo video at the library.

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