Articles

We asked Wasafiri readers to suggest books to add to the English Literature curriculum. Here are the 40 suggestions we received in the order that they were submitted: Closure:

The Return of Postcolonialism and the Dead: Postcolonial Gothic Literature and Hong Kong by Calvin Fung … Writing and artwork in the recently published Wasafiri special issue, ‘Writing Hong Kong’, capture the tense political climate that Hong Kong is experiencing.

It was 3.30pm on a winter’s day. I heard a scream and pushed open the door. The floral curtains were wide open in our bay window. If Dad had been home, the curtains would have been drawn, he didn’t like people to stare in.

Know Your Place is a collection of essays on working class experiences by 22 writers including Kit de Waal, Durre Shahwar Mughal and Catherine O’Flynn.

Bare Lit Anthology reviewed by Dzifa Benson … On the one hand, it’s a shame that a book such as the Bare Lit anthology is necessary.

Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and educated in the UK. She is the author of six books, five novels and a memoir. Three of her novels are set in Trinidad and the Caribbean region.

Letter to Uncle Sam by Saadat Hasan Manto … Saadat Hasan Manto was an Indo-Pakistani writer, playwright and author considered among the greatest writers of short stories in South Asian history.

I’ve known Neel Mukherjee for about eight years. A mutual friend introduced us in Bombay a couple of years after his first novel, Past Continuous, was published in India and had gone on to win the Crossword Book Award for Fiction. When Neel and I met, I was working for ELLE in Bombay.

Olivia Laing is a British writer and cultural critic. She is the author of three books: To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City. Her tale 'The Abandoned Person's Tale' appears in Refugee Tales: Volume II, which is out now from Comma Press.

The opening chapter of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness asks us to consider where old birds go to die. Soon after, in Arundhati Roy’s trademark lyrical prose, we are introduced to the enigma that is Anjum.

In 2011 I interviewed novelist Anna Lawrence at Pow Wow Festival of Writing.  Soon after, she invited me and two other Birmingham writers, Elisabeth Charis and Kit de Waal, to get together to write, as Natalie Goldberg says, ‘with a rounded belly’; WRB was born and we’ve been meeting ever since.

Having been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for her novels All the Blood Is Red and Orange Laughter, critically acclaimed author and lecturer Leone Ross returns with Come Let Us Sing Anyway, a raucous, vibrant collection of short stories that rattles along, genre hopping with chameleon-like gusto.

An Interview with Lesley Nneka Arimah - Caine Prize Shortlist … Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) is shortlisted for The Caine Prize for 'Who Will Greet You At Home' published in The New Yorker (USA. 2015) .

An Interview with Bushra al-Fadil - Caine Prize Shortlist … Bushra al-Fadil (Sudan) is shortlisted for The Caine Prize for 'The Story of the Girl whose Birds Flew Away' translated by Max Shmookler with support from Najlaa Osman Eltom…

Arinze Ifeakandu (Nigeria) is shortlisted for The Caine Prize for 'God's Children Are Little Broken Things' published in A Public Space 24 (A Public Space Literary Projects, Inc., USA. 2016). Arinze was the editor of The Muse (No.

Winnie M Li’s impressive debut novel Dark Chapter takes an unflinching look at rape through the experience of a young American-Taiwanese woman who is brutally attacked by a teenage boy while hiking through the West Belfast countryside.

Chikodili Emelumadu (Nigeria) is shortlisted for The Caine Prize for ‘Bush Baby' published in African Monsters, edited by Margaret Helgadottir and Jo Thomas (Fox Spirit Books, UK. 2015).

Magogodi oaMphela Makhene (South Africa) is shortlisted for the Caine Prize 2017 for 'The Virus’ published in The Harvard Review 49 (Houghton Library Harvard University, USA. 2016).

Shivanee Ramlochan is a Trinidadian poet, arts reporter and book blogger. She reviews Caribbean literature for the  Trinidad and Tobago Guardian ’s Sunday Arts Section, and is the Book Reviews Editor for  Caribbean Beat  Magazine.

Ticker-Tape  by Rishi Dastidar reviewed by Dzifa Benson … On first encountering the idiosyncratic titles of poems on the index page of Ticker-tape (such as -  ‘Deconstructing an attempted date with Miss Pacific Standard Time’, ‘Joystick Valhalla’, ‘All the laurels in the world…

Ola Awonubi studied for an MA in Creative writing and Imaginative Practice at the University of East London and in 2008 her short story The Pink House, won first prize in the National words of colour competition.

‘A story is active and a story changes the world.  A story is changing the world as I write this.’ … An Interview with LeAnne Howe … LeAnne Howe is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, scholar, and writer of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and plays.

Mervyn Morris is the outgoing Poet Laureate of Jamaica. His work as a poet, essayist and teacher has had an enduring impact on Caribbean literature. He is professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona, Jamaica, and lives in Kingston.

Rowyda Amin is the author of two pamphlets, We Go Wandering At Night And Are Consumed By Fire (Sidekick Books, 2017), and Desert Sunflowers (flipped eye, 2014).