By Mark Garcia-Prats

In hopes of extending the positive attention about Africa stemming from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, The Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artist is sponsoring a writing project called Pilgrimages. The idea for the series is that during Africa’s first World Cup, 14 African writers will be sent to 13 different African cities and one Brazilian city for two weeks, with each writer then producing a non-fiction travel book about their experience. The extensive series hopes to depict the diversity and complexities of modern, urbanized Africa for an African audience.

The CACAWA believes the project will “reintroduce Africa to the literary world”. The organization states that “the collection will be the most significant single addition to the continent’s archive of literary knowledge since the African Writer’s Series, founded in the 1960s.” They plan to release all 14 books at the same time in Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town, timed with another important soccer tournament, the 2012 African Cup of Nations.

The 14 authors will be blogging and uploading video and photos on the Pilgrimages website during the World Cup. The site will also act as a forum for general discussion about the project, which will be posting essays, stories, and photos from the general public.

Visit StoryMoja to read more about Pilgrimages and to read a list of the authors involved and the cities they will write about.

Read the Pilgrimages blog.