Interviews

Victoria Adukwei Bulley interviews poet Mantra Mukim about his debut collection, Glitchwork (the87press, 2026). They discuss the grid or mesh as a form of poetics; a failed moon landing thwarted by unexpected error that informed Mukim's writing; other inspirations from visual art and music, like Nasreen Mohamedi and Aphex Twin; and the influences of growing up in the industrial and forest landscapes of Central India.

We spoke to María del Pilar Kaladeen and Marta Fernández Campa about guest co-editing Wasafiri 126: Impossible Returns — The Spain Issue, which explores racialised and migrant existences in Spain that are intentionally overlooked in favour of more white, ethnonationalist narratives of the country. They discuss their deeply intentional process of putting the issue together, intersectionality, colonial and historical memory, editing at a time of catastrophe, and more. 

Our 2026 International Writer in Residence Safia Elhillo speaks to us about her reading lists, writing rituals and practices, what 'global solidarities' means to her, valuable advice she has received as a writer, and more in this new interview. Stay tuned for more news on Safia's residency, including upcoming workshops and new writing from the renowned Sudanese American poet, author, and editor.

In this interview with Ellah Wakatama, Chair of the Judges of the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, she discusses the role of literary prizes, the importance of translated literature, and the qualities that make a creative work stand out for her.

We spoke to Gavin Herbertson, winner of the 2025 Wasafiri Essay Prize, about his winning essay 'Interleafing the Philoctetes Figure: Derek Walcott’s Omeros and The Isle is Full of Noises', making scholarship more accessible outside the academy, Caribbean literary history, his love of Walcott, the best writing advice he's received, and more.

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse is a prolific Rwandan writer critically acclaimed in the French-speaking world; her work significantly contributes to the literature on witnessing genocide in Rwanda and beyond. Here, she speaks with Zoë Norridge – Wasafiri Associate Editor and academic at King's College London – about her early reading influences in Rwanda and France, the role of writing today at a time of heightened conflict, and how she supports survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi to share and publish their stories. This conversation includes additional material from Beata and Zoë's original interview published in print in Wasafiri 125.

Read a conversation between writers Jay Bernard, Dante Micheaux, and Oluwaseun Olayiwola on Transfigurations: Collected Poems, a landmark volume containing all eight major poetry works by the legendary Black American poet, playwright, and polymath, Jay Wright. Together, they trace critical, audience, and reader perceptions of Wright's work over time, as well as why Wright has been historically overlooked in the global literary sphere in comparison to contemporaries like Wole Soyinka. The conversation is interspersed with two of Wright's poems from the volume, as well as several other excerpts and fragments.

The prolific fiction writer Madeleine Thien speaks to Jeremy Tiang about her latest novel, The Book of Records, where a young girl takes refuge in a structure called the Sea — resembling the Kowloon Walled City if it were 'adrift in time and space'. There, her life melds with three characters analogous to Du Fu, Baruch Spinoza, and Hannah Arendt. The interview further explores Thien's earlier books, her relationships to her characters and stories, grief, and the impact of genocide – in both Cambodia and Palestine – on her thinking and practice. This is an extract from our Spring 2026 issue, Wasafiri 125.

Liliana A Romero, a visual artist and DJ from Colombia, speaks to lecturer Amber Lascelles in this extract from Wasafiri 124 on centring Black women in her art, navigating the art world as a Black Latinx woman, the role of activism in her practice, and more. Liliana is also the cover artist for our landmark British Latinx issue.

We spoke to writer and lecturer Karina Lickorish Quinn and poet Leo Boix about guest co-editing Wasafiri 124: Presencia y Resistencia — British Latinx Writing & Art, which critically explores the vibrancy and creativity of the British Latin American and Latinx communities. They discuss their editorial process, the importance of foregrounding Indigenous languages, structural flaws in the British publishing industry, discovering new writers and hidden gems, plus more.

In June 2025, we held a live conversation with R T Samuel and Ruby Hembrom – editor and founder-director from Blaft Publications and adivaani, respectively – two indie publishers championing some of the most exciting and radical work in India's literary scene. The discussion was facilitated by Ananya Mishra and Prerana Kumar, and explored India's contemporary publishing industry, anti-caste expression, science fiction, and promoting Adivasi-Indigenous literary cultures.

As part of our Writing the Self, Writing Berlin series, editorial intern Divya Ghelani spoke with Siddhartha Lokanandi, who runs Hopscotch Reading Room, a Berlin-based English-language bookshop he founded in 2017. A haven for the intellectual – and political – bibliophile, Hopscotch is regarded as ‘an outlier of a bookstore’ in both its home city and beyond, for its intentional centring of non-Western, anti-racist, Global South, and anti-colonial perspectives, as well as minor literatures.

Wasafiri's Deputy Editor, Vamika Sinha, spoke to Botswana-based writer Lauri Kubuitsile about her novel, The Scattering — a work of historical fiction set against the backdrop of the Herero and Nama genocide and Second Anglo-Boer War in southern Africa. They discussed women's realities during war, Botswana's literary scene, and southern African writing more widely.

We spoke to the twice Booker-shortlisted Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo – who recently won the Best of Caine Award – on her career trajectory, the force of literary prizes, writing life, and thoughts on the current African literary landscape.

Khairani Barokka speaks to Alton Melvar M Dapanas on how her latest book Annah, Infinite reshapes speculative nonfiction, disrupts genre norms, and disputes the racial, gendered, and ableist biases of fraught literary and artistic spaces.

As part of the Writing the Self, Writing Berlin series led by our CHASE intern Divya Ghelani, three writers based in Berlin – Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Vijay Khurana, and Deniz Utlu – sat down together this summer for a filmed conversation on topics ranging from Berlin's identity as a creative capital to immigration, translation politics, and more. Watch the conversation — exploring what it means to write in Berlin today.

For this instalment of our Wasafiri  Wonders series, we spoke to 2025 International Booker Prize judge and our Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize judge for Fiction this year, Anton Hur, on his writing habits and rituals, the art of translation, and upcoming work.

We're delighted to share an exclusive extract from the forthcoming collection, We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities, edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso. This extract is from an interview by Swift with Beverley Bryan and Stella Dadzie – founding members of the socialist and activist group, Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent – on the joys and difficulties of political organising across race, class, and gender.

In this extract from our autumn issue, Wasafiri 123, Christina Sharpe speaks to Guy Gunaratne about the origins behind her most recent work – Ordinary Notes – and the ways in which she draws from historical archives and visual art in her writing.

Wasafiri Deputy Editor and writer, Vamika Sinha, spoke with 2025 International Booker Prize winners Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi (Wasafiri's inaugural International Translator in Residence) at a live event at Waterstones Islington, London. Read their wide-ranging conversation, where they explored what went into writing, compiling, and producing their winning collection, Heart Lamp.

Khaled Esguerra, Juan Gonzales, and Carlos Páez González came to the UAE at different ages. They hail from different backgrounds and engage in various forms of visual and performance arts. In Part 2 of their interview published in Wasafiri 122: The UAE Issue – on how their practice generates conversations, and weaves collectives and audiences across different segments of UAE society – they elaborate further on these ideas while discussing what community building even means.

It is impossible to explore the UAE’s literary scene without probing its publishing landscape. Three bookmakers in conversation, Ahmad Makia, Zoe Patterson, and Vamika Sinha, are located at seemingly different ends of this spectrum. In Part 2 of their interview published in Wasafiri 122: The UAE Issue – on engaging place, a text’s lifetime, and the necessity, or lack thereof, of an archive – they expand on these ideas while examining the wider UAE publishing landscape, its history, and their roles within it.

In this wide-ranging interview – on the humour of maps, immigration officers, pilfering through a father's library, and more – Safa Khatib speaks to poet and translator Mona Kareem about their collection I Will Not Unfold These Maps and the evolution of their poetics and practice amid Arabic and American publishing industries. This piece is published in tandem with Wasafiri 122: The UAE Issue, where Mona is a contributor.

Awarded Highly Commended in the 2024 Wasafiri Essay Prize for her paper on Selma Dabbagh's short fiction, Simar Bhasin speaks to us about her scholarship, championing Palestinian literature, love and desire as anticolonial forces, and more.