Articles

Raymond Antrobus is a poet, educator, editor, curator, and ‘investigator of missing sounds’.

Deirdre Shanahan's debut novel Caravan of The Lost and Left Behind (Bluemoose Books) tells several untold stories of individuals who live in but at the fringes of mainstream British society — those on the roads…

The essay by Amrita Sharma and Peerzada Raouf, and extracted from issue 99 of Wasafiri, is second in a series of ethnographic writings documenting events and practices that make the Kashmiri people’s resistance today.

The 2018 Wasafiri New Writing Prize Winners and Judges. (L to R):

'I suspect that we, as a species, have a drive to make sense and to make beauty, optimally at the same time.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book they love that nobody’s heard of?  Wasafiri  Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

Libita Clayton, ‘BS2-RESIST & REVOLT BLACK HISTORY, LIVE TRANSMISSION’. Image courtesy of artist.

Ashley Hickson-Lovence's debut novel, The 392, is set almost entirely on a London bus over just 36 minutes, and was released in April 2019 (OWN IT!).

'I feel as if my first drafts are almost like codes waiting to be configured into an understandable algorithm.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book they love that nobody’s heard of?  Wasafiri  Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

For Women in Translation month (#WITMonth), and in anticipation of a special feature on translation in Wasafiri issue 99, we invited four professors and prizewinning translators to share what translation means to them and to comment on the state of translation today.

Photography by Charlie Hopkinson … 'Ordinary People is already a kind of music album in literary form and has its own playlist, downloadable from Spotify.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

'I believe a queer world has the potential to be a free world, but whilst people are still discriminated against on the basis of gender identity or sexuality we are so far from being free.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

On the occasion of the publication of Roger Robinson’s A Portable Paradise on 12 July, our writer-in-residence, Nick Makoha sat down to speak with the author about the book, his working methods and his views on poetry.  … Robinson first published in Wasafiri Special Issue 74 : 'Brighter Suns:

On July 8, 2019, Lesley Nneka Arimah was awarded the 20th Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story ‘Skinned’ (published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern) in a ceremony at SOAS, University of London.

The mind is a warped thing. When I still lived in Uganda, before any prize came my way, before I was published and I wrote in darkness, I looked at the phenomenon of literary prizes in a somewhat peculiar way.

'My books explore the African diaspora: past, present, real, imagined. I’m always surprised when some people find the idea of this limiting.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

'A rapper once told me it was important to be the first customer of everything you do.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book they love that nobody’s heard of?  Wasafiri  Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

Photograph by Amanda Imai … Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a poet and writer. His first poetry collection, Sergius Mencari Bacchus, was published in 2016 in his native Indonesia.

'First drafts are a pie where all the components have been cooked most of the way through, but you’ve gotta put it in the oven for it to become worthy of your guests.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

'When I am writing I need to feel removed from my body and myself and what I think it knows. I want to enter what I call "the poetic mind". When I am in that space, time moves differently.' … Ever wondered what your favourite author’s first drafts look like?

This article is published alongside the publication of Wasafiri Special Issue 98: Queer Worlds/Global Queer. Available to pre-order now.

‘Don’t write what you know (boring advice). Write what you want to find out, what you want to know, what you don’t know, what you are curious about.’ … Ever wondered what your favourite author’s first drafts look like? Or which book they love that nobody’s heard of?

Photography by Hayley Madden for Spread The Word … 'Grief is as much of a universal language as music is.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book they love that nobody’s heard of?  Wasafiri  Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

Photograph by Nick White … Sisonke Msimang is a South African author and activist. She is the author of the memoir Always Another Country, and more recently, of The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela.

Photograph by Victor Adewale … 'I always find myself drawn to stories that folks don’t hear too much about, particularly if they have to do with Africans or their descendants around the world.' … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?