The city of Swan Libraries Honors Peter Deng at Midland, Western Australia.
A story of hoping against hope and resilience coupled with aspiration, the founder of African World Books, Peter Deng’s journey, contains a message of optimism for all.
Midland, Western Australia- Inclusivity of Cultural Diversity. Multicultural Australia.
Peter Deng is the founder of Africa World Books; he was recently invited as a Chief Guest by the City of Swan Libraries at the Midland. The South Sudanese Australian shared his journey to Australia and his vision of uniting the African diaspora across Australia and beyond. His platform is one the first to promote inclusivity and acceptance of African writers in Australia and provides them with necessary assistance in publishing their books in multiple languages. Organized by Eventbrite, the presentation was held on Monday, 31 October 2022, at Old Midland Courthouse, 49 Helena Street Midland, WA 6056, Australia.
The few powerful have the atrocious capacity of inflicting brutality upon innocent and unarmed citizens of the state. The world is full of stories of people forced to leave their land for their safety and their family's security. Peter Deng saw something similar when he was left with the only option of leaving South Sudan and finding refugee in one of the most generous refugee respondents across the globe, Australia. Peter brought his yearning of hope to share the otherwise picture of northeastern Africa, which has been suffering in the war and fate they never wanted to be part of. Peter used the opportunity provided by the City of Swan Libraries to share his story about fleeing the civil war in South Sudan to start a publishing company in Australia.
Based in Perth, African World Books have gone global, connecting Africans from all over the world. Alongside Peter, Manyang Deng, an African-origin multilingual author of a series of children's books exclusively written to promote the Western Nilotic language, Dinka, spoken by the people of South Sudan, could not make it. In an informational, insightful, and engaging event, Peter was welcomed by Callum Morrison, with great respect and hospitality.
Peter felt the need to publish books about Africa and by Africans, for people to stay connected with their heritage, paving the way for the opportunity to preserve his own people's culture and language. Today, African World Books provides services from formatting and editing to publishing hard copies and ebooks with a primary aim of promoting African authors by helping them both publish books and retail them, as well as helping them develop their careers along with educating the Australian community about the culture and history of the Africans, shared Peter at the event about his journey which started in 2006.
'It was an amazing experience. Burmese and Sudanese share the same history making it easier for me to connect on a much more personal level. The whole event was phenomenal. I am overwhelmed by the love and respect I have received. As the only African there, I didn't feel out of place even for a second. I also had an opportunity to meet our great scholar, Dr Anne Aly, the current Minister for Early Childhood Education and Minister for youth. I stood up proudly and acted on behalf of all the African presidents here and back home. Businessmen/Women are like hunters, and I am taking the Africa World Books idea to them since our numbers and devotion is not there; I will come from Burma when you all wake up. I will always make my African people proud. Special thanks to the Commonwealth Bank for proudly supporting the South Sudanese 2022 business forum' – Peter Deng.
The order of the program also included a concluding session of 'One Book at a Time,' where the African heritage was shared with Australia in all harmony and warmth; people generously bought copies, appreciated the sheer passion and hard work of authors and the incredible efforts of Africa World Books for providing them with a platform like this. Peter specially thanked people of his community and others who showed immense participation in buying books at the South Sudanese Business forums and the Alijama concert.
For more details and information, visit the website Africa World Books. Read more about the event at Peter Deng: Journey to Publishing (Midland).
About City of Swan Libraries Event- Peter Deng Peter Deng: Journey to Publishing
City of Swan Libraries was recently organised by the City of Swan team in Midland, the Chief Guest of which was Peter Deng, a South Sudanese native, now based in Australia and is the founder of Africa World Books, a forum for promoting African culture, heritage, and language through books written by African authors.
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