News & Events

Alfred Fagon Award Winners Announced … The annual Awards took place at The Dorfman, National Theatre on Friday 8 December.

Win 4 Issues of Wasafiri Magazine – Simply suggest a book to add to the English Literature Curriculum … You may have seen the recent debates about diversifying the English Literature Curriculum at both G.C.S.E. and A-Level. Which one book would you add to the curriculum?

The winners of the 2018 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award are the novelist and short story writer Stuart Evers, and the author, librettist and screenwriter Tessa McWatt, who is also a Trustee at Wasafiri.

The​ ​Story​ ​of​ ​a​ ​Brief​ ​Marriage​​ ​by​ ​Anuk​ ​Arudpragasam​ ​emerges​ ​as​ ​the​ ​winner​ ​from​ ​a​ ​shortlist​ ​of​ ​five to​ ​take​ ​the​ ​coveted​ ​US​ ​$25,000​ ​DSC​ ​Prize … 18t​h November 2017; Dhaka, Bangladesh :

DAVID T.K. WONG FELLOWSHIP … The David T. K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship is a unique and generous annual award of £26,000 to enable a fiction writer who wants to write in English about the Far East to spend a year in the UK, at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Book Prize shines light on Highland literature … New UK book prize will recognise and reward great literature from the Highlands. A new book prize, established this year, will celebrate the finest work that recognises the rich culture, heritage and landscape of the Highlands.

Susheila Nasta and the Wasafiri team are delighted to welcome Rukhsana Yasmin, an outstanding publishing professional who has recently joined us as Deputy Editor.

Ingrid Persaud from Trinidad and Tobago has won this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story ‘The Sweet Sop’. The story was chosen from the five regional winning stories in this year’s Prize which received a record 6,000 entries. ‘The Sweet Sop’ is Persaud’s first short story.

Wasafiri has been successful in renewing its National Portfolio Status with Arts Council England, with funding confirmed for 2018-22. Wasafiri Founding Editor Susheila Nasta said…

On Thursday 13 April 2017 we held readings and a panel discussion with Amaal Said, Ayisha Malik and Sabrina Mahfouz, which was chaired by Wasafiri Deputy Editor Arifa Akbar. Here are some highlights from the panel discussion. [embed]https://youtu.be/mE2EuEAieQA[/embed]

View the video on Facebook … David Dabydeen, the celebrated Guyanese poet, novelist, and scholar talks to Susheila Nasta about his career spanning genres and continents, and how contemporary Guyanese writing tackles the intricacies of the country’s troubled past.

To celebrate the launch of The Things I Would Tell You (Saqi Books) we have an exclusive extract from the short play 'Battleface' by Sabrina Mahfouz. Sabrina Mahfouz is a British Egyptian playwright, poet and screenwriter.

Shiraz, a silent-era Indian film which features an early on-screen kiss, is set to be restored by the British Film Institute with a score composed and performed live by Anoushka Shankar.

The winners of the 2016 Wasafiri New Writing Prize have been announced! Our congratulations go to the three winners of the NWP 2016: Niamh MacCabe for Nobody Knows the Shivering Stars (Fiction) Danielle Boodoo-Fortune for Portrait of my father as a grouper (Poetry) Shiva Rahbaran for Massoumeh:

The most compelling literatures are tragic – a life at its end, an opportunity taken away, a precious thing stolen. And it is this that links the winning entries, over the last four years, in the Life Writing category of Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize.

Alice Curham lives by the sea in Kent with her partner and son and three goldfish. She has had poetry published in Dream Catcher and Red Pepper magazines and been shortlisted in the Gladstone’s Library Short Story competition and longlisted for the Plough Prize.

Nigeria’s Tope Folarin Wins 2013 Caine Prize … By Sola Njoku … Nigeria’s Tope Folarin has been awarded the 14th Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story, 'Miracle'. The announcement was made yesterday, July 8, at a ceremony held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK.

Gillian Best is a writer whose debut novel will be published by Freight Books in Spring 2017. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2013) and published in her native Canada and the UK.

Royston Emmanuel is a teacher trainer at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, St.

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo/Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces. Born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria, Akwaeke holds two degrees, including an MPA from New York University.

Richard Georges is a writer, editor and lecturer in the British Virgin Islands. His poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, sx salon, Barrelhouse, The Caribbean Writer, Wasafiri and elsewhere. In 2016, he won the Marvin E Williams Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer.

Sarala Estruch was born in London in 1983 to a French mother and Indian father.

Ovarn Brown was born in Black River, Jamaica. Beth Thompson was born in Melbourne, Australia. ‘The Kitchen Duppy’ is the first story they have written together. -- The night jasmine flowers once the sun sets.

Robin Ganderton has already outlived John Keats and is on course to do the same with Percy Bysshe Shelley. Last year he won the Terry Hetherington Award for Welsh Writers Under Thirty and has just been selected to receive a Literature Wales bursary to work on his novel in progress.