Introducing the Ottawa Black Book Club
by
Olunosen Louisa Ibhaze
The gap in the Ottawa literary space motivated author and Diversity, Equity and inclusion advocate Olunosen Louisa Ibhaze to start The Ottawa Black Book club in 2019 as a safe space to get the community to read more books by authors of African and black descent. The goal of the book club is to shape the African and black narrative one book at a time by melanating, decolonizing and diversifying bookshelves.
The onset of the pandemic led to the book club going virtual and opening its doors to a global membership of multicultural booklovers with its roots still in the city of Ottawa. The monthly meetings have been great opportunities for guest authors like former MP Celina Ceaser-Chavannes, Lawrence Hill and many others joining in for authentic conversations about their books.
Under the book club, there is The Melanin Djali Project which educates children about the African continent through great stories in published books and a podcast on YouTube “The Melanin Djali Project Conversations” which celebrates representation and diversity in children’s, storytelling, entertainment and edutainment through conversations with authors.
The Ottawa Black Book club in collaboration with Carleton Institute of African Studies will be hosting Nigerian-Canadian author Micheal Afenfia on June 10th from 1:00pm to 3:00pm at the Dominion Chalmers Centre. He will be presenting his newest book titled “Leave My Bones in Saskatoon”. People can RSVP for the event on Eventbrite.
To join the book club, kindly send a request to the Facebook group “The Ottawa Black Book Club” or send an email to [email protected] and also follow on Instagram @theottawablackbookclub.
To watch the podcast , find us on YouTube at The Melanin Djali Project Conversations and to feature on the podcast, send an email to [email protected].
Olunosen Louisa Ibhaze is the founder of The Ottawa Black Book club and a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advocate. For more information about Louisa, do check out her website www.olunosenlouisaibhaze.com.