Articles

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?

Shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018 … It can’t be. But there it is – my friend Kester’s Throne of Weapons, soldered together from rusting AK-47s. It stands alone on a plinth in a beautifully lit glass case in the African gallery of the British Museum.

'Light cast on me should make others understand it’s better to not think of sharing the table with me.' … Ever wondered what your favourite author’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.

Shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018 … Dear Keith: I'm on Craigslist again. I am angry, ten years ago. And this is Hollywood.

'It is a tale of two sisters – one who murders men and the other who is forced to clean up after her.' … Ever wondered what your favourite author’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.

'A world leader who reads books at all is no longer a sure thing.' … Ever wondered what your favourite author’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.

‘People are trifling, their lives meagre and fleeting. But this, Nana, thinks, is also what makes them loveable.’ … Nana is the central figure in a tightly woven triptych formed in childhood, completed by her older sister, Sora, and former neighbour Naghi.

Image via APAL on flickr … 'Mountain of the Night' was shortlisted for the 2018 Wasafiri New Writing Prize 'Life Writing' category.

We are living through a super-age of storytelling. Films and TV series, all available to watching online with the tap of a finger, are being produced and released with such proliferation that we don’t have enough hours to watch them all. That should be great news, shouldn’t it?

Over the past six months, as I’ve been the inaugural writer in residence at Wasafiri, I’ve run a series of ‘ask me anything’ sessions with emergent writers seeking to professionalise their work…

Rain soaks the pages of these two collections, Monsoon on the Fingers of God by Sasenarine Persaud (Mawenzi House: 2018), and Imtiaz Dharker’s Luck is the Hook (Bloodaxe Books: 2018).

Image by Khanya, The Designer … Winner of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018 Life Writing Category … ‘What’s that?’ The security guard at St Pancras gestures to the unidentified lump flagging up on the monitor. ‘A binder.’ … Blank stare. ‘I’m a transsexual. I wear a binder.’ He looks annoyed.

By Matthew Lecznar … As societies across the world struggle to adapt to increasingly precarious conditions – conditions produced in part by the polarisation of groups of people along narrow lines…

Reviewed by Leah Cowan … 2018 has been a significant year for the visibility of survivors of gender-based violence in the Caribbean.

On 2 July 2018, Makena Onjerika was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing for her extraordinary story ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’. The short story, which was first published in Issue 89 of Wasafiri, is a gritty tale set in the bustling streets of Nairobi.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who died in 2013, was a prolific writer of novels, short stories and screenplays. She was born in Germany in 1927, the daughter of a Jewish lawyer. Prawer Jhabvala fled to England with her parents and brother when she was twelve.

Illustration by Leyla Reynolds … Ingrid Persaud is a Trinidadian-born writer who is the winner of the prestigious 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. 'The Sweet Sop' is a delightful if harrowing account of the impact death and terminal illness can have on family relations.

Photo by Yusuf Wachira … Peter Kimani is a Kenyan writer of fiction and poetry, whose most recent novel, Dance of the Jakaranda, is now published in the UK.

When writing about identity, the obvious choice is to take the first person point of view: I am. I remember. I come from. I will be. This is my voice, my story.  … But there’s nothing obvious about identity, she thinks.

Often in Young Adult (YA) novels, both physical and mental health issues can be written in a high-school or teenage-centric universe, full of boyfriend-girlfriend issues, dysfunctional or problem-ridden parent-child relationships, broken homes, and sexual abuse.

We walk on wet gravel, following the silver hearse up the hill. In front of me, my eldest cousin. He rests his hand on the boot of the car, his face scrunched with tears. ‘Bentong!’ he shouts. ‘Go back to Bentong!’ … In the heat, the car’s fumes curl dark and toxic.

An earlier version of this chapter, September 1939, was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2016. - … Chapter 4: A Country at War … We were tired and hungry, my sister Hannah and I, as we stood waiting in Littleport Village Hall, waiting to be chosen by someone, anyone.

Ah, Maman! There are your alligator and crocodile shoes, lined up outside the wardrobe.