Wasafiri Editor

From the harbour she looked like a tiny black beetle scurrying up the hill towards the oblivion of the horizon. The sinews in her thighs burned and her fingers were numb from the bags she carried filled with potatoes, yams, breadfruits and acres of cotton muslin.

Ashley Hickson-Lovence's debut novel, The 392, is set almost entirely on a London bus over just 36 minutes, and was released in April 2019 (OWN IT!).

The essay by Amrita Sharma and Peerzada Raouf, and extracted from issue 99 of Wasafiri, is second in a series of ethnographic writings documenting events and practices that make the Kashmiri people’s resistance today.

The shortlist of the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2019 has been announced, with five shortlisted writers each in the categories of Fiction, Life Writing, and Poetry. The winners will be announced on 9 November 2019 at the British Library as part of our 35th birthday celebrations:

Since the late 1980s, the poet George Szirtes has published many collections of poems including the monumental New and Collected Poems (2008). His latest publication is The Photographer at Sixteen (2019), a memoir of his mother’s life recounted in reverse and based on many photographs.

Last month, Birmingham played host to its first decolonial literature festival: ‘Literature Must Fall’. A day-long event held in the city centre, the festival brought together writers, editors and academics to explore what it could mean to decolonise and demystify literature today.

On the 9 November, Wasafiri will bring together readers, writers and past contributors from all over the world for a day of workshops, talks and debates on the challenges and potentials of writing within, and through, our current fraught times. Featuring:

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s debut poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter, was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2019. It features some of her most well-known and widely performed poems as well as some never-seen-before material.

The winners of the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2019, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, were announced at our 35th birthday festival, 'An Island Full of Voices: Writing Britain Now', at the British Library on 9 November.

The fraught intricacies of a mother-daughter relationship form the core of 'Third Person Female', woven from the fabric of day-to-day life, shared cooking, childhood memories—and the differences of age and culture that flare up in the face of a new and unexpected relationship.

‘Natural Causes’ deftly narrates two parallel stories: of the narrator’s discovery of a dead blue tit in her garden, and her reflections on the death of a close friend, whose death—of natural causes or by suicide?—is an unresolved presence in her life.

I first encountered Romesh Gunesekera’s work back in 1999 when he gave a reading from his short story collection Monkfish Moon.

‘Picong’ is a Trinidadian word for taunting, and this poem addresses the experiences of colourism and cruelty that are so insidious and ubiquitous, not only culturally but within families.

‘...I have become more Trinidadian away from Trinidad. It’s a liminal position, being a Caribbean writer in the UK. For me, it is a position of longing but also of transformation through longing.’ … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like?

Comma Press’s ‘Reading the City’ series has been traversing the globe since 2006, sourcing a selection of ten authors from specific cities to collate ten short stories that depict the social, historical or political essence of their contemporary city.

To mark the milestone of Wasafiri’s 100th issue, we invited Alastair Niven to cast an eye over the literary output of the past three and a half decades and pick thirty-five outstanding books from the last thirty-five years.  … No one could refuse an invitation to pick their favourite books…

They have walked all night … through the desert, this couple: José y Maria … and the baby. duermete mi niño … duermete por favor. Por favor. Their English isn’t great – they’ve got a bit. Yes sir. No sir. Thank you sir. They’ve got that down pat.

They said history was over. I wanted them … to be wrong. I wanted things to turn. I wanted a world I could find … beautiful on its own, without any … particular good news. I’d never had … a truth that could hold me.

Jessica Mookherjee, highly commended in the 2017 Forward Prizes, published her second collection of poems, Tigress, with Nine Arches Press late last year.

James Young is a Northern Irish writer, translator and journalist. His short fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals, and as a journalist he has written for several leading newspapers and websites.

Our school Debating Society had a lot going for it. For a start, it was a handy refuge during wet weather; once a week we had access to the Lecture Theatre in the warm, dry heart of the school which was otherwise out of bounds during the lunch break.

I pray to god every morning to bury me first … & I simmer to boiling point with melodrama. I keep it one hundred with sensation, music, oddities. Yesterday I called even a poem habibi. I licked the hardwood floors that held a memory … of your feet.

Kamau Brathwaite, who passed away on February 4th 2020, is one of the Caribbean’s most influential and original poetic voices.

Isabel Waidner is a writer and critical theorist. Their novel We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff (2019) was shortlisted for the 2019 Goldsmiths Prize and is currently shortlisted for this year's Republic of Consciousness Prize.

I woke up at 4:12am on 27 December and it was gone. It stayed for Christmas and Boxing Day and then just disappeared. It’s not that I don’t know where to find my table, it’s that I don’t know how to find it, and I’ve got to find it because … I can’t quite touch the future without it.

My father hid in the basement … painting uniforms on metal soldiers, his finger tips … rough as bark. I climbed to the top of the cherry tree … to spy on the neighbors while I chewed on pits. Painting uniforms on metal soldiers, his finger tips … cracked from the paint thinner.

Ellah P Wakatama OBE is Editor at Large, Canongate Books Ltd.; Senior Research Fellow at Manchester University (Centre for New Writing) and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.

'I always wish there were more translations of poetry from Indonesian languages, especially in languages other than Indonesian, including from works that aren’t in book form to begin with.

If you've ever read Emily St John Mandel's novel Station Eleven, you may have spent a lot of time recently thinking about Emily St John Mandel's novel Station Eleven. Namely, could it be, is it possible—will it get that bad? If the book is new to you, a brief plot summary from the back cover:

High praise – ‘Dickensian’, ‘A worthy heir to Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude’ – and a prize considered a literary rite of passage – the Caine Prize for African Writing, or ‘Africa’s Booker’ – preceded the arrival of Zambian writer Namwali Serpell’s doorstopper debut…

I was in standard six, twelve years old, as thin as an acacia sapling and just as rough. I joined the queue of bloomer-clad girls and waited my turn. The test for making it to our school’s Physical Education team would be a perfect handspring:

1.1.1 cousin wants the whakapapa … 1.1.2 cousin played reps back in the day … 1.1.3 cousin bringing the leftovers … 1.2.1 cousin baby four on the way … 1.2.2 cousin going up to the tangi … 1.2.3 cousin three jobs pretty busy … 1.2.4 cousin another month of curfew … 1.2.

My grandfather, or Nana Bhai as we used to call him, always took great pains to make it clear that he was asked to come to Britain in the late 1950s. Post-war Britain needed the workforce – in factories and mills across the country – and it called upon the former colonies for help.

In a series of brilliant essays written in the 1980s and 1990s, subsequently re-published as Postcolonial Studies. A Materialist Critique (2004), Benita Parry invigorated literary-theoretical debates about the cultures of (neo-)colonialism with her sophisticated Marxist analysis.

In July 2018, I completed my Master’s degree frustrated that I never located enough material to sustain further study on British-Iranian literature. I found myself reaching over the Atlantic—to North America, where American-Iranian voices were vibrantly circulating in comparison to the UK.

The last twelve months have been a terrible time for Nigerian literature. First, in March 2019, came the death of Pius Adesanmi in the Ethiopian Airways crash.

Anasuya lies between the crumpled bedding. Even the slightest touch of the chenille blanket irks her. The cooler spews warm air into the bedroom of their top floor apartment in Bangalore. The walls seem to glow with heat like a tandoor. She kicks the blanket into a ball, pushing it into a corner.

London is now three roundabouts. Each connected, each the same. All roads only lead to or from these roundabouts. No escape. But they’re big. Really big. London is now England and maybe even Europe. No one has settled anywhere, we all just keep driving, searching for somewhere else.

When you are interviewed for BBC documentaries in your palace, they will want to know how you met. Cast your eyes downward and tell them how you were a shy and hardworking secretary in the State House typing pool. Omit to mention that you were married. Lie that you were divorced and not looking.

Hina-chan has such beautiful skin, I think as I wash her. Using a linen washcloth I’ve specially ordered to avoid irritating her delicate skin cells, I start from her toes, working slowly up the length of her body stretched out supine in the water.

The Onorevole Gaetano Costa, the highest of high-court judges, domiciled in the city of Palermo, was a heavy smoker. His wife Rita did what she could to discourage the habit.

Bernice Chauly is a Malaysian novelist, poet, educator and former director of the George Town Literary Festival. She has published seven books of poetry and prose:

'I don't believe any word is untranslatable, just that we haven't been imaginative enough.'  … Ever wondered which book your favourite translator would secretly love to translate?

‘BLM organisers call off London event [13th June] to avoid clashes with far right’, the Guardian headline reads on the very evening I’m writing this…

It is hard to review a book of such gravitas and importance; a text that refuses the boundaries we were meant to exist within. How to honour the soft liquid rigour, the sharp vast tenderness, of a writer like Saidiya Hartman?

Mieko Kawakami, born in Osaka in 1976, made her literary debut in 2006. She has published nearly thirty volumes of novels, short stories, poems, and essays.

On 7 June 2020, the city of Bristol burst into the international spotlight in a single moment of visual poetry, as protestors armed with ropes and determination did in a matter of minutes what the city had long failed to manage:

We spoke to Elizabeth Chappell, Hiromitsu Koiso and Yasuhiko Ogawa – our three guest editors – about curating, compiling and commissioning Wasafiri 102, our special issue on Japan. Wasafiri : Please tell us how you came to co-edit together.

Here, take my brain, each last lobe … one hundred billion empty neurons … firing, its shocks so blunt, my thoughts disrobed; … bruises and wounds unhidden.

'I think it be would be Whitney Houston does a grime inflected album, with special features from Rhianna, Stormzy, Skepta, David Bowie. Album artwork from either Tracey Emin or Carrie Mae Weems – maybe an artwork each side.

‘One would like to think of the author-translator as comrades in arms.’ … Ever wondered what your favourite writer’s first drafts look like? Or which book your favourite translator would secretly love to translate? Wasafiri Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

Room (n.) A space that can be occupied or where something can be done. The first conversation took place in the university Council Chamber seven years ago. A Professor of Literature, the author of many books, was being honoured, although I wasn’t sure exactly why.

If you want to know how poor somebody was growing up, ask them how many windows they had. Don’t ask what was in their fridge or in their closet. The number of windows says it all. It says everything. If they had none, or maybe one or two, that’s all you need to know.

a crowd gathers around an empty frame … suspended from the ceiling / some see the … face of their saviour / others find … themselves lost in a tunnel / those at the … front with their chequebooks at the ready … have the audacity to call it Art / they’re all … correct / but they’re also wrong to…

That night I snuck out of the house and walked for half an hour to Ramlet AlBayda. It was the only public sandy shore left in Beirut, courtesy of the warlords who ran the country after the end of the civil war.

One of the many myths perpetuated by British colonial governments and its systems of propaganda is that Empire existed not for the economic benefit of Britain but to civilise, Educate (and Christianise) primitive peoples of the earth.

Cathy Park Hong is a Korean-American poet and essayist who is the author of three volumes of experimental poetry. Her most recent work is the non-fiction book, Minor Feelings:

She won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017, then the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. Now, Ingrid Persaud brings her most expansive, ambitious work yet. Love After Love has already generated international headlines.

Earlier this summer, two reports shook up the publishing landscape in the UK.

Branko A single year brings two big changes: I become a man and my brother becomes an American. My new status is announced by Mrs Mitchell from over the road when she hears that my voice is breaking.

My mother’s behaviour at Arab weddings would make the perfect audition video for RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the next one we attended together only confirmed her as the clear genetic foundation for my drag career. It was a cousin’s wedding, and this time it was happening in Mykonos in Greece.

I am shaped by borders. I was born with the privilege to cross these borders freely; I was born with light skin and a New Zealand passport. I am shaped by colonial islands. Aotearoa New Zealand on my dad’s side, and Sabah, Malaysia, on my mum’s side – formerly known as British North Borneo.

Kadija Sesay (Chair), Simon Prosser (Fiction) (Photo credit: Sharron Wallace for Museum of Colour), Aida Edemariam (Life Writing), and Raymond Antrobus (Poetry) (Photo credit:

Born in Jamaica in 1963, Claudia Rankine moved to the United States as a child. A poet, playwright, essayist, her work spans several decades, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) and the play The White Card (2019).

‘It was so interesting, considering everything that’s happening in the world, to be in that privileged position of seeing where people’s minds are at, what people are writing,’ said poet Raymond Antrobus of judging the 2020 Queen Mary  Wasafiri  New Writing Prize.

9 February 1940, John Maxwell Coetzee, Mowbray Nursing Home, Cape Town … He enters the world on his mother Vera’s own birthday. It is just weeks before the first of many moves. With their infant son, Vera and Jack return to the still small town of Victoria West in the Great Karoo.

For over three decades Wasafiri has created a dynamic platform for mapping new landscapes in contemporary international writing featuring a diverse range of voices from across the UK and beyond.

The doctor’s voice is muffled by his mask. He says I need to be careful, more careful than the average person. So much about Covid-19 is unknown, particularly the effects on a fetus. I ask him if I should be isolating from my husband and my toddler for the duration of this pregnancy.

We're delighted to announce the appointment of our new Writer-in-Residence, the poet, writer, and translator Jennifer Wong.

Kiera Vaclavik – Professor of Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of London – reflects on child-centred research during and post-pandemic and responds to Avni Doshi's 'Unfamiliar Creatures'—published as part of the Queen Mary Wasafiri Global Dispatche s initiative…

What a year. As November shifts into December, and the eyes of the world turn backward – reviewing the last eleven months, and turn forward – looking ahead to what many of us hope will be something better, it's almost impossible not to fall into what are becoming 2020's analytical clichés:

Ever wondered which book your favourite translator would secretly love to translate? Or a book in translation that may have slipped under your radar?  Wasafiri Wonders is a series that asks these questions for you.

We spoke to Billy Kahora and Zoe Norridge – our guest editors – about curating, compiling and commissioning  Wasafiri 104 , our special issue on Human Rights Cultures. You can read their print editorial, 'What Is Seen and What Is Said' , and other free access materials, here . Wasafiri :

My sister’s sister-in-law’s name was Rocío and she was pregnant. She went to church to light a candle to Saint Ana for having granted her the miracle. Her man – short, brown-skinned, stout – went with her, satisfied at having fulfilled his mandate by insufflating his part of the mix.

Codex 10  … Rumi said Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely … is made for the eye of one who sees.  In 1973, the same year … my mother met my father, Steven Speilberg had just wrapped  … on American Graffiti.

Applications for the 2021 Editor at Large programme are now closed. You can get to know more about our Editors at Large here.

L-R: Theresa Lola, Momtaza Mehri, Cecilia Knapp, Caleb Femi … Now in its fifth year, the Young People’s Laureate (YPL) for London is UK poetry’s third most prominent ‘office’, after the Poet Laureate and the Oxford Professor of Poetry.

Penny Green – Professor of Law and Globalisation, Head of the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London – reflects on borders…

Armed with a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a MA in Global Cinemas from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), Asim Abbasi is a British-Pakistani film director, screenwriter, and producer.

At least it’s good for the planet, we say to each other. At least there’s a silver lining. With fewer planes in the air, fewer cars on the roads, fewer cruise ships smouldering over the ocean, there has to be a positive effect on the environment. It makes so much intuitive sense:

Dr. James Bradley – an Environmental Scientist at Queen Mary, University of London – reflects on the climate crisis and responds to Robbie Arnott's 'Warmer Waters'—published as part of the Queen Mary Wasafiri Global Dispatche s initiative…

There is no better lycée than Our Lady of the Nile. Nor is there any higher. Twenty-five hundred metres, the white teachers proudly proclaim. ‘Two thousand four hundred ninety-three metres,’ points out Sister Lydwine, our geography teacher.

Wasafiri  is excited to announce a series of online writing workshops tutored by our Writer-in-Residence Jennifer Wong, and  our  Associate Editor Thomas  Glave .  … Jennifer Wong's series of writing workshops will focus on poetry, human geography and writing across and between languages…

2020   … We’ve lived in separate boxes in Hackney all this time.   … I pull off the mask that conceals my nose and my mouth. I’m among the trees now, looking for you. Are you on the towpath? I check my phone. No messages.

Urfi , I never came to stay. It’s just that it’s no longer as  simple as it was .   Then ,  the plan was straightforward: I was a visitor, just pass ing  through , embracing this land  of dreams  for a year.

t here’s  an art to arranging    … bones, laying them together     … by way of size, shape, density,   … to form a human  body;   … y ou need to be careful where the    … sternum crosses the chest or   … the rib cage cloisters sit…

i. Muladhara … If we could reconstruct the temple of our bodies, we all know what we’d change first. A little demolition work in the zone of belly, some gutting around hips and bum, a coat of paint after weather-stripping the face.

Representing more of the globe than any other prize of its kind, the Queen Mary  Wasafiri  New Writing Prize is opening its doors for 2021 and welcoming work in fiction, poetry, and life writing from unpublished writers around the world.  The prize will remain open from 1 February to 31 May 2021 .

Our winter 2020 issue – Wasafiri 104: Human Rights Cultures – makes space for South-South connections and conversations, focusing on four post-conflict countries – Kenya, Rwanda, Colombia, Argentina – bringing together the literatures that follow in the wake of war.

Do you want to submit to the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Fiction, Life Writing, and Poetry, but you're not sure what 'life writing' looks like? Let Shivanee Ramlochan show you. I began writing poems not because I was inspired, but because I was compelled.

If you ask me about water, this is the water I think about. The glow of myriad colours on the lake at night. Rickshaw drivers practising their English consonants and vowels with tourists as they pedal past the hutongs, earning five yuan each time—not even a pound.

I set  up  Octavia in 2015. But I did not do it alone.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an effect on us all, and we all have stories to share of our experiences within it. These are stories that only we can tell, in our own words.

Wasafiri is excited to announce that we have expanded our global team of editors by recruiting five Editors at Large based in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Aotearoa New Zealand.

‘ I need you, Simi, please call . ’   …   … I message back.  ‘ Working   til  two. Then I’ m all yours . ’   …   … But a t two,  I’m  h ungry .    …   … ‘ I need you. ’     …   … I  ignore  it .    …   … ‘ G ot to be at the doctors before  three.

The history of migration in the UK is also a history of food. And the history of British food is also a history of its cities.

I veer towards writing about memory as a way to navigate something very present or painful in my adult life. 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're excited to announce a new series of free digital events, Transformative Testimonies: Writing and Human Rights, taking place 17 - 23 May, 2021. All events are free to attend. In December 2020, Wasafiri launched issue 104: Human Rights Cultures.

Black is tired.   … Black would like   … to make a statement:    … Black  i s tired   …   … Black’s eyes    … vacant, arms    … leaden, tongue    … can’t taste shit    … stomach cannot compress death.    …   … Black would like    … to state :

Writing is one of the most unpredictable crafts. 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.

Dimuth’s father had lost his job. He was an accountant, CIMA-qualified, still a few years from retirement; the family had outstanding medical bills and loan repayments on the land in Ragama. Dimuth didn’t know what to do.    … Dimuth told Meena this in the middle of the quad .

After Sabrina Benaim … My house is falling down. It is falling down, but  … slowly.

They were calling it disaster communism. At the meetings they encouraged people to orientate themselves toward ‘the common good’, recognising disaster as an ongoing state of emergency, as the very fabric of the old way. Aude struggled to make sense of the coming days, let alone months and years.

‘A raincoat?’ Ettie Pebble’s puffy fingers fumbled with the buttons of the coat. She was talking to herself as she looked at the large white plastic discs looped through their button holes. She was perplexed. Simple actions had become hard. How did that happen? The raincoat was bright yellow.

Isabel Hofmeyr and Charne Lavery, colleagues from the Oceanic Humanities for the Global South project based in Johannesburg, attended a conference of the Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) of the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) in Ushuaia…

Wasafiri’s ‘Meditations’ is a new series that features creative and personal responses to new literature, asking writers to seek connections with themselves, their own work, and the text they’re reading.

in the far-spread ocean solitudes   …     … Hinemoana hides herself so perfectly   … in the fold of the tide   …     … she thinks she would prefer to stay untethered   … so moves from place to place   …     … Hinemoana is a blue hallway   … with no adornments   …     … she is a backlit expanse   …

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.

In the next essay in our Queen Mary Wasafiri Global Dispatches series, novelist C.A. Davids – writing from Cape Town – tracks the slow, surreal rhythm of days spent indoors watching the world outside unravel.

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…

Hana Pera Aoake (Ngaati Hinerangi me Ngaati Raukawa, Ngaati Mahuta, Tainui/Waikato, Ngaati Waewae, Kaati Mamoe, Waitaha) is a writer and artist from Aotearoa New Zealand. Their work is concerned with realising Indigenous sovereignty through the body, and through the whenua – the land.

Heba Hayek is a London-based writer born and raised in Gaza, Palestine.

Earlier this year, Wasafiri was joined by five new Editors at Large based in Southeast Asia and Aotearoa New Zealand. In the coming months, as part of our new Wasafiri at Large series, each Editor at Large will shed light on their local literary scene. William Tham Wai Liang, based in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, was formerly Senior Editor at Vancouver’s Ricepaper magazine.

* … Click here to download a screenreader friendly version of this poem. alice hiller’s Forward Prize shortlisted debut, bird of winter , responds to being groomed and sexually abused in childhood, and finding healing beyond this crime.

It was my fourth birthday and we were moving into the house that would become our home of twenty years. The heat was arid, and the road — the same road where I’d learn to ride a bike, run races with my sister, walk back from exams down, break up with my boyfriend at the kerb of — was glittering.

Lingering on this tropical esplanade    … I watch at low tide    … the restaurant of mud    … that softly feeds the waterbirds.    … The second day of a Queensland winter    … in a humid, rich June    … as the carriage of the pelican    … rests…

* … Click here to download a screenreader accessible version of this poem. King Llanza (he/they) is from the Philippines. His poems have appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Sledgehammer Lit, bind collective, amberflora, Voice & Verse, SAND and Cordite Poetry Review, among others.

In this interview with Pavan Kumar Malreddy, Roy looks back on her decades-long career, and reflects on art and protest, the role of the novel, and notions of 'normality' in a post-pandemic world.  

Jessica Gaitán Johannesson is a Swedish/Colombian writer and climate justice activist based in Edinburgh. Recently appointed Wasafiri's new Writer-in-Residence for 2021-22, she facilitates workshops exploring the colonial roots of the climate crisis.

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.

  … A weed:

S J Kim was born in Korea and raised in the American South, and is a Lecturer in Creative and Critical Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London.

In this powerful, experimental personal essay, Elizabeth Chakrabarty writes about her decision to leave academia in order write fiction, and how the traditional narrative arc of a crime novel created space for her recovery.

We are so proud to join in the congratulations for Abdulrazak Gurnah, Wasafiri Advisory Board member, longstanding contributor, editor and friend, who has won the 2021 Nobel Prize for literature.

We are excited to announce and warmly congratulate the winners of our 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Fiction, Life Writing, and Poetry. ‘I was very mindful of doing this work for Wasafiri,' said novelist and judge Hirsh Sawhney, of judging the prize.

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.

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.

In honour of Caleb Femi's  Poor winning the 2021 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, Wasafiri is proud to share his poem 'Fisher of Men', which was shortlisted for the 2017 Wasafiri New Writing Prize.

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…

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.

In the latest instalment of the Queen Mary and Wasafiri essay series, Global Dispatches, novelist Katherine Agyemaa Agard writes on dreams, solitude, and touch – both physical and imagined.

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…

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, Nina Mingya Powles talks about her food diary and travel memoir, Tiny Moons. Nina is a poet, writer, and maker from New Zealand currently based in London.

In the latest of Wasafiri’s Global Dispatches series, author and academic Barbara Taylor responds to Katherine Agyemaa Agard’s work ‘strangers, dreaming’.

over        head     billowing …      headscarf       white as surf …                        like    a hug  … billowing like a curtain  …                   or a flag    hanging    like  …             a noose        a mask    like  …        a blanket     a sheet …                   billowing …      …

[caption id="attachment_22623" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Gulls Flee Sheerwater[/caption] FOREST   … He claimed to have invented the night. This was not Romanticism, which was mainly a question … of translation. Yet she was often mute during their carriage rides.

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 'The Book Smuggler' for free until the end of January, or read it in Wasafiri 10 8: House of Wisdom … When I was a young boy, my grandfather taught me the difference between stars and planets.

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes.

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer, talking about one of their works, for about thirty minutes. This month, Uruguayan novelist Daniel Mella talks about his novel El Hermano Mayor .

One of the most international prizes of its kind, the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is now open until 30 June 2022. Writers from around the world who have yet to publish a book are invited to submit in the genres of fiction, life writing, and poetry.

In this warm and engaging personal essay, writer Divya Ghelani reflects on the strength and confidence she found by starting a reading group for contemporary novels by BIPOC authors.

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:

Andrés N Ordorica delivers an electric reading of 'In the Name of the Joto, Mariposa, y Maricón' — a joyful prayer and blessing to queer Latinx identity, freedom, and culture.

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.

To celebrate the launch of Wasafiri 109, read an extract from Monica Ali's Love Marriage (2021, Virago Books), a warm and tender novel that examines the ways in which class, race, and culture intersect in contemporary Britain.

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) .

In the latest of Wasafiri's Global Dispatches series, Dr Swati Arora reflects on CA Davids' essay, answering with a piece that examines India's growing Hindu supremacy, the communal language of protest, and how the state's rhetoric around the Covid-19 pandemic can shore up systems of oppression.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled emerging writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled emerging writers from all over the globe.

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.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 109, Nat Raha, Sabah Choudrey, C N Lester, and Roz Kaveney discuss how in the face of racial capitalism, literature and community can act as a lifeline of connection and creative expression for trans and non binary people.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

In these two poems from Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe’s Dylan Thomas P rize -shortlisted collection Auguries of a Minor God , the poet explores her own writing process , and the complex construction of her verse.

In celebration of Ramadan, read Sanah Ahsan's evocative and rhythmic poem 'ramadan's greeting', and listen to an exclusive reading by the poet. we pluck the new moon / out of mecca’s sky … a lottery ball / make a guessing / of gods … plan / first fast will be Thursday / chuss me!

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, life writing pieces, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

In the next essay in our Queen Mary Wasafiri Global Dispatches series, author Irenosen Okojie writes about the initiative that Africans are showing as they fight for community health and survival during the climate crisis.

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.

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer, talking about one of their works, for about thirty minutes. This month, Johny Pitts explores the origins of his nonfiction travelogue, Afropean:

Twenty-four years after the publication of The Fire People –  the 1998 seminal collection curated by Lemn Sissay – comes More Fiya , an anthology of Black British poetry curated by poet and scholar Kayo Chingonyi.

Welcome to Craft. Each month, we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, Rob Nixon details the personal, political, and ecological crises that inspired his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor .

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 piece, Wasafiri’s Writer-in-Residence, Jessica Gaitán Johannesson, interrogates the books that have – and haven’t – shaped her.

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.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

In 2016, when Gina Miller challenged the government's authority to trigger Article 50 to leave the EU, it catapulted her into the public eye, and resulted in a stream of misogynistic and racist abuse.

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, Booker-Prize-winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo, shares the origin of her first verse novel, Lara.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

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.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

Wasafiri is proud to publish the shortlisted works of the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. These poems, essays, and short stories detail a range of emotions and experiences, produced by skilled new writers from all over the globe.

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…

Winner of the 2020 Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Fiction for ' How You Make Jamaican Coconut Oil', Sharma Taylor’s debut novel, What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You, is a vivid and moving story of belonging, family, and inheritance.

Welcome to Craft . Each month, we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, author, educator, and performer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan discusses her poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter .

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 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.

In this extract from Amal Sewtohul’s Made in Mauritius, translated from French by Nadiyah Abdullatif, the narrator explores his complex heritage, and the lineage of his father, an worker from China, who would eventually make his way to Mauritius. Wasafiri 110:

In this powerful video, Shivanee Ramlochan reads her poem 'Canefield'. First published in Wasafiri 110: Afterlives of Indenture, the poem is a sorrowful exploration of pain and legacy, and a tribute to those whose stories remain untold. Wasafiri 110:

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

Wasafiri’s ‘Meditations’ is a new series that features creative and personal responses to new literature, asking writers to seek connections with themselves, their own work, and the text they’re reading.

Read an exclusive extract from Ingrid Persaud's 'The Burke Street Chronicles', first published in  Wasafiri 110, and part of a series of sharp, funny audio short stories produced by BBC Sounds. You can read the full excerpt in Wasafiri 110, now available to download or purchase online.

In this fluid, lyrical piece of life writing, Dur e Aziz Amna reflects on a study abroad program in Paris, and in doing so, interrogates the idolisation of canons, her longing for literary forefathers, and the ideas and forces that went into creating her debut novel, American Fever.

In this lyrical, layered essay, author Sophie Jai examines the experience of writing and publishing her debut novel Wild Fires , and the ways in which history resonates on through centuries and generations. Wasafiri 110:

In this visual essay, including exclusive photos, Olga U Herrera explores the work of Wendy Nanan, and her dedication to capturing the nuances of her own life and the world around her.

Read an exclusive extract from Chinmay Sharma's short story 'Hostile Environment', a meditation on distance, relationships and love. You can read the full excerpt in  Wasafiri 111: Translating Lives, now available to download or purchase online.

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, award-winning novelist, poet, and translator, Meena Kandasamy offers insight into her translation of the book, Women Dreaming by Tamil author, Salma.

In this extract from 'Islam and Me', written and translated by Shirin Ramzanali Fazel with assistance from Simone Brioni, the author reckons with Italy's systemic racism, and her experiences with family, assimilation culture, and immigration.

In these two bilingual poems, Reem Abbas probes notions of language, family, and voice. Elegant and rhythmic, Abbas makes use of the gaps between words and worlds, raising questions of home and remembrance. Wasafiri 111:

Welcome to Craft. Each month we bring you one international writer, talking about one of their works for about thirty minutes. This month, literary scholar and cultural historian Saidiya Hartman discusses her groundbreaking work, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments:

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 111: Translating Lives, Jennifer Wong interviews fellow poet Will Harris on his debut collection RENDANG, and the craft, experiences, and ideas that went into writing it.

In this quietly devastating poem, Vasiliki Albedo effortlessly crafts a narrative of domestic tension, inspired and informed by one of van Gogh's paintings. Together, Albedo blurs memory and art to deliver a striking, painful portrait of childhood.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 112:

Read this exclusive extract from Jade E Bradford's short story 'Trouble', first published in Wasafiri 112: Reimagining Education, which paints a startling and empathic portrait of the systemic racism and oppression embedded in educational systems, with blunt, evocative prose.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 112: Reimagining Education, Sita Balani considers the dissonance of the university's role in authoritarian nationalism and simultaneous embrace of the language of ‘decolonisation'.

In this sharp, rhythmic poem from Naomi Foyle, a catalogue of items serves to dissect a long legacy of colonialism and racism, and challenges the inherent violence in the ways we archive and perpetuate the British Empire.

In these two poems from Rakhshan Rizwan's debut collection Europe, Love Me Back (The Emma Press), the poet probes ideas of systemic racism in academia and unbelonging with an unerringly sharp eye for language and imagery.

In this passionate and joyful article – accompanied by an exclusive poem from her debut collection Cane, Corn & Gully – poet, dancer, and choreographer Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa explores her experience teaching writing through movement…

Wasafiri is pleased to publish the pieces shortlisted for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. The poems, essays, and short stories in this series showcase the best new writing from the best new writers across the globe – in all their diversity and complexity.

In this exclusive extract from Wasafiri 112: Reimagining Education, Kavita Bhanot writes about Sathnam Sanghera’s much-lauded book, Empireland:

In this essay, Stephanie Sy-Quia reflects on the five languages in her family, learning and un-learning language, and the multilingual environment’s earliest lesson – all through anecdotes from childhood and her experiences growing up across countries and cultures – and explores classism, (de)…

Wasafiri is pleased to publish the pieces shortlisted for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. The poems, essays, and short stories in this series showcase the best new writing from the best new writers across the globe – in all their diversity and complexity.

Wasafiri is pleased to publish the pieces shortlisted for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. The poems, essays, and short stories in this series showcase the best new writing from the best new writers across the globe – in all their diversity and complexity.

In this exclusive extract from 'Season' by Rebecca Tamás, a slow, moving meditation on ritual and the nonhuman life which opens our spring issue, Wasafiri 113, we see the seasons change – from spring to summer – during the early days of the pandemic.

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.

Wasafiri is pleased to publish the pieces shortlisted for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. The poems, essays and short stories in this series showcase the best new writing from the best new writers across the globe — in all their diversity and complexity.