Articles

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an effect on us all, and we all have stories to share of our experiences within it. These are stories that only we can tell, in our own words.

Representing more of the globe than any other prize of its kind, the Queen Mary  Wasafiri  New Writing Prize is opening its doors for 2021 and welcoming work in fiction, poetry, and life writing from unpublished writers around the world.  The prize will remain open from 1 February to 31 May 2021 .

Urfi , I never came to stay. It’s just that it’s no longer as  simple as it was .   Then ,  the plan was straightforward: I was a visitor, just pass ing  through , embracing this land  of dreams  for a year.

L-R: Theresa Lola, Momtaza Mehri, Cecilia Knapp, Caleb Femi … Now in its fifth year, the Young People’s Laureate (YPL) for London is UK poetry’s third most prominent ‘office’, after the Poet Laureate and the Oxford Professor of Poetry.

Wasafiri  is excited to announce a series of online writing workshops tutored by our Writer-in-Residence Jennifer Wong, and  our  Associate Editor Thomas  Glave .  … Jennifer Wong's series of writing workshops will focus on poetry, human geography and writing across and between languages…

Applications for the 2021 Editor at Large programme are now closed. You can get to know more about our Editors at Large here.

Penny Green – Professor of Law and Globalisation, Head of the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London – reflects on borders…

My sister’s sister-in-law’s name was Rocío and she was pregnant. She went to church to light a candle to Saint Ana for having granted her the miracle. Her man – short, brown-skinned, stout – went with her, satisfied at having fulfilled his mandate by insufflating his part of the mix.

We spoke to Billy Kahora and Zoe Norridge – our guest editors – about curating, compiling and commissioning  Wasafiri 104 , our special issue on Human Rights Cultures. You can read their print editorial, 'What Is Seen and What Is Said' , and other free access materials, here . Wasafiri :

Ever wondered which book your favourite translator would secretly love to translate? Or a book in translation that may have slipped under your radar?  Wasafiri Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

What a year. As November shifts into December, and the eyes of the world turn backward – reviewing the last eleven months, and turn forward – looking ahead to what many of us hope will be something better, it's almost impossible not to fall into what are becoming 2020's analytical clichés:

Kiera Vaclavik – Professor of Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of London – reflects on child-centred research during and post-pandemic and responds to Avni Doshi's 'Unfamiliar Creatures'—published as part of the Queen Mary Wasafiri Global Dispatche s initiative…

The doctor’s voice is muffled by his mask. He says I need to be careful, more careful than the average person. So much about Covid-19 is unknown, particularly the effects on a fetus. I ask him if I should be isolating from my husband and my toddler for the duration of this pregnancy.

We're delighted to announce the appointment of our new Writer-in-Residence, the poet, writer, and translator Jennifer Wong.

9 February 1940, John Maxwell Coetzee, Mowbray Nursing Home, Cape Town … He enters the world on his mother Vera’s own birthday. It is just weeks before the first of many moves. With their infant son, Vera and Jack return to the still small town of Victoria West in the Great Karoo.

For over three decades Wasafiri has created a dynamic platform for mapping new landscapes in contemporary international writing featuring a diverse range of voices from across the UK and beyond.

Born in Jamaica in 1963, Claudia Rankine moved to the United States as a child. A poet, playwright, essayist, her work spans several decades, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) and the play The White Card (2019).

My mother’s behaviour at Arab weddings would make the perfect audition video for RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the next one we attended together only confirmed her as the clear genetic foundation for my drag career. It was a cousin’s wedding, and this time it was happening in Mykonos in Greece.

Kadija Sesay (Chair), Simon Prosser (Fiction) (Photo credit: Sharron Wallace for Museum of Colour), Aida Edemariam (Life Writing), and Raymond Antrobus (Poetry) (Photo credit:

Earlier this summer, two reports shook up the publishing landscape in the UK.

Cathy Park Hong is a Korean-American poet and essayist who is the author of three volumes of experimental poetry. Her most recent work is the non-fiction book, Minor Feelings:

‘One would like to think of the author-translator as comrades in arms.’ … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book your favourite translator would secretly love to translate? Wasafiri Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

She won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017, then the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. Now, Ingrid Persaud brings her most expansive, ambitious work yet. Love After Love has already generated international headlines.

Room (n.) A space that can be occupied or where something can be done. The first conversation took place in the university Council Chamber seven years ago. A Professor of Literature, the author of many books, was being honoured, although I wasn’t sure exactly why.