Interviews

In this wide-ranging and generous interview with Franklin Nelson – originally published in Wasafiri 117: The State of the Industry – Margo Jefferson discusses the critic at work and play. Read and download the interview in full on the Taylor & Francis website or order our Wasafiri 117 to read it in print.

Khairani Barokka, author and former editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, corresponded with Tiffany Tsao, fiction writer and translator of Indonesian literature, for Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: South East Asia and the Littoral.

In this expansive interview, Haiyan Xie talks to multiple-award winning author Yan Lianke. Together, they explore how stories resonate across different sociopolitical boundaries and the ways in which authors are reconceptualising realism.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 115, Silvia Rothlisberger speaks to the award-winning Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro about the inspiration and inception of her 2021 novel, Elena Knows, which was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Their conversation explores Piñeiro's writing process and Latin American identity, and spans wider themes from her work, such as motherhood, living with illness, suicide, religion, and crime fiction.

In this exclusive interview, Diana Evans, Chair of the Judges of the 2023 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, talks about the power and pitfalls of prize success, the importance of writing community and history, and offers advice to prize entrants and literary hopefuls of all kinds.

Ahead of our free online event on 25 April – Education: Reimagination, Decolonisation, and Change – we spoke to co-guest-editor Angelique Golding about curating, commissioning, and editing Wasafiri 112: Reimagining Education.

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.

Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

In this interview, Idza Luhumyo talks about her various influences, the intersections between forms, and what she looks for when she's reading. Wasafiri: The Caine Prize is one of Africa's biggest literary prizes, and one that comes with a lot of global publicity and attention.

Over the past five years, Wasafiri has had the privilege of working with PhD students on a CHASE placement to provide them valuable experience in the field of academic and literary publishing.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 110 – produced during the Covid-19 pandemic – video artist and writer Richard Fung interviews author Ramabai Espinet, discussing the intricate implications of Indo-Caribbean and Chinese cuisine, legacies of indentureship within their communities…

With just a short time left to enter the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, which closes on 30 June, 5pm BST, Wasafiri sat down with judges Mary Jean Chan and Preti Taneja to discuss writing advice, the importance of rejection, and what they're looking for in a winning entry.

Journalist, critic, and founder of the Bocas Lit Fest, Marina Salandy-Brown has contributed immensely to Caribbean literature and culture, as well as playing a key role in introducing and promoting that literary culture across the world.

Written by Sang Young Park and translated into English by Anton Hur,  Love in the Big City (Tilted Axis Press) was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and has been widely praised for its sharp translation and its tender, humorous examination of Korean queer life.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 109, Adrija Dey interviews Sara Ahmed, discussing Ahmed's experience of writing her book Complaint!, and the larger process of gathering testimonies, being a 'feminist ear', and working to advocate for others and oneself from an intersectional perspective.

In this conversation between Wasafiri Writer-in-Residence Jessica Gaitán Johannesson and novelist Daisy Hildyard, both writers reflect on their upcoming books The Nerves and Their Endings and Emergency, and on the way that the climate emergency has affected and shaped their work.

Gloria Wekker is a Dutch-Surinamese Professor E merit a of Gender and Ethnicity at Utrecht University, and author of the book White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Duke University Press) .

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. We spoke with Lola Olufemi, a black feminist writer and CREAM/Stuart Hall Foundation researcher from London.

Shortlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition in 2018, Sabba Khan’s The Roles We Play joins the canon of graphic memoirs by female artists of colour, including Mira Jacob’s Good Talk , Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis , and Manjit Thapp’s Feelings: A Story in Seasons .

Download the full text of ‘Representing Anything Limits You, Makes You Smaller' for free until the end of January, or read it in Wasafiri 10 8:

The Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships for 2021-2022 were announced on 2 November, with poets Dzifa Benson, Romalyn Ante, and Jamie Hale each receiving £15,000, and a year of mentoring support dedicated to developing their craft.

Over the last year, Wasafiri's Publishing Director, Malachi McIntosh (with support by members of the Wasafiri team) has been hard at work designing and recording Craft – a literary podcast featuring a range of international writers, including Daniel Mella, Chen Chen, Bernardine Evaristo…

L-R: Caleb Femi, alice hiller, Holly Pester, Ralf Webb and Cynthia Miller … Part of the prestigious Forward Prizes for Poetry, the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection rewards ingenuity, skill, and boldness.

Ahead of her event on 15 October at Cheltenham Festival, 'The Sunday Times Must Reads: Louise Kennedy', Wasafiri talked to author Louise Kennedy, whose collection of short stories, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Bloomsbury) was released earlier this year to rave reviews.