40 Years of Wasafiri: An Exhibition & Two Editors in Conversation
As part of our 40th anniversary year celebrations, we're proud to host an exhibition and our two editors – Dr. Susheila Nasta (Founding Editor) and Dr. Sana Goyal (Editor & Publishing Director) – in conversation for the first time. In collaboration with Angelique Golding – a PhD student on the magazine's archives, based at Queen Mary University of London – who is the lead curator of the exhibition, and will chair the conversation, this engaging and enlightening evening will chart and trace Wasafiri’s history, trajectory, editorial strategy, and vision over forty years.
How do literary magazines survive and thrive? What kinds of editorial and curatorial choices and decisions do literary editors make, and why? Challenges aside, what role has Wasafiri played in championing and platforming new critical and creative voices from across the globe? And what stories and histories does the archive hold? The event promises to shed light on precarious and pivotal moments in the magazine's life and times, including its adaptive strategies in the face of funding challenges and political shifts over four decades, and hopes to juxtapose the magazine's past with its present and future — enriched by sounds and images from the archives.
Join us for an evening of reflection and celebration – by way of the archives – as we mark 40 years of Wasafiri.
When: 20 November, 2024, 7-8.30pm
Where: BLOC, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary University of London
Tickets: Free, booking required.
This event is supported by the Queen Mary University of London Centre for Creative Collaboration.
Introducing our 40th Anniversary Issue — Wasafiri 119: Futurisms
This issue brings to the fore writers whose perspectives – on the present and on the future – have historically been sidelined. From alternative histories to critiques of the late-capitalist present; high fantasy, sci-fi and the posthuman; theories of landscape, the city, and the body; this milestone issue will showcase a branching network of writing on and around the power of persistence as resistance, as we continue to imagine into being futures that defy an increasingly oppressive present.