The Miseducation of a Nature Poet: Reclaiming Nature Poetry from the Margins by Cara Thompson
Our Writer in Residence Cara Thompson reflects on her position as a 'nature poet' in her journey to becoming Nottingham's inaugural Nature Poet Laureate. Pushing back against the bucolic, idealised, and privileged forms of nature writing she encountered in her schooling in the UK, she reclaims and redefines the genre on more inclusive terms.
NonfictionWriter in Residence
In Defence of Untranslatability by Deepa Bhasthi
In this essay, Deepa Bhasthi defends untranslatability – the intentional choice to not-translate text – as a necessary practice. As examples, she draws on Kannada words that feel too complex or hyperlocal to be translated into a single English word, as well as significant books she read during her time as our inaugural International Translator in Residence. Written by Jamil Jan Kochai, Waguih Ghali, and SJ Kim, these texts deliberately do not translate/transliterate certain words into English, and Bhasthi unpacks the aesthetic and political impacts of these choices.
NonfictionTranslator in ResidenceWriter in Residence
Not All Literary Translators Are Created Equal by Sawad Hussain
In this candid, comprehensive essay drawing on her own career experiences, our outgoing 2024 Translator-in-Residence Sawad Hussain discusses the particularities – both the perks and drawbacks – of translating between Arabic and English, and the larger inequities between language pairs in the translation industry.
Writer in ResidenceTranslator in ResidenceNonfiction
Autofiction and Emotional Truth by Durre Shahwar
In this reflective essay, Durre Shahwar, Wasafiri's Writer-in-Residence, reflects on her journey to autofiction, the genre's 'slippery and elusive' capacity for deeper, emotional truths, and the writerly work of reaching beyond the self into community and into new ways of seeing.
NonfictionWriter in Residence
Writing Myself Down: The Language of Autofiction by Durre Shahwar
In this profound essay in fragments, Wasafiri's Writer-in-Residence Durre Shahwar explores the slipperiness of language, and the 'missed connections within or due to language'; learning Urdu, and how the 'hand movement of writing Urdu is akin to drawing'; and translation:
Writer in ResidenceNonfiction
The Books That Didn't Make Me by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson
In this piece, Wasafiri’s Writer-in-Residence, Jessica Gaitán Johannesson, interrogates the books that have – and haven’t – shaped her.
Writer in ResidenceNonfiction
'Against the background of collapse': A Conversation with Jessica Gaitán Johannesson and Daisy Hildyard
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.
InterviewsWriter in Residence
An Extract from 'What Have I Done?' and Other Illusions of Control by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson
Jessica Gaitán Johannesson is our new Writer-in-Residence for 2021-22. Read an excerpt from her essay in Wasafiri 107: Crisis/Recovery. I have one or two pictures from the winter of 2006. They’re caged in an external hard-drive, carried around between homes; safe, but out of the way.
Writer in Residence
Claiming Space as a Writer in a Multilingual World
Writer and poet Jennifer Wong took up the position of Wasafiri's Writer-in-Residence in November 2020. Six months on, as her residency comes to an end, she looks back on her popular programme of writing workshops that took place earlier this year…
Writer in Residence
Houhai by Jennifer Wong
Watch Jennifer Wong read her poem 'Houhai' on our YouTube channel.
PoetryWriter in Residence