HIBAF 2025 - Fifth Edition

HIBAF 2025 explored the ways knowledge is produced, preserved, shared, and transformed within Hausa society and beyond. With "Knowledge Production(s)" as its theme, the festival examined indigenous knowledge systems rooted in oral traditions, communal wisdom, spiritual practices, literature, art, and everyday cultural practices.

A major focus was the intersection of indigenous, Islamic, colonial, and contemporary forms of knowledge. From oral traditions and Ajami manuscripts to Western education and digital archives, the festival explored how different systems have shaped Hausa intellectual and cultural life through transmission, adaptation, translation, and hybridisation.

HIBAF 2025 also considered the politics of knowledge production: who produces knowledge, whose knowledge is recognised, how knowledge is preserved, and how communities can reclaim and reimagine their own intellectual and cultural histories in an increasingly digitised world.

Through conversations, performances, recitations, translations, and art exhibitions, the festival explored knowledge production as a dynamic tool for literary and artistic development, cultural preservation, and new forms of intellectual exchange.

The fifth edition of the Hausa International Book and Arts Festival was held in a hybrid format from 19-20 December 2025, with physical engagements at Arewa House, Kaduna, Nigeria.