Hear four exciting African Exiled Writers read their poetry and prose to take back their African narratives for themselves. Discussion to follow readings.

About the Artists

Robert Kabemba Mangidi is a Manchester-based prolific poet and political activist born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has performed his poetry widely including at Place of War at Manchester University International Conference, Exodus Centre, Freedom from Torture and BBC 4. He is a graduate of Lubumbashi, Wits, Bolton and Manchester Metropolitan Universities.

Novelist, playwright and poet Christopher Mlalazi

Christopher Mlalazi is a novelist, playwright and poet from Zimbabwe who is currently exiled in Mexico City. He is the author of the novels Many Rivers (2009), Running With Mother (2012) – translated into Italian and German – They are Coming (2014), and the story collection Dancing With Life: Tales From the Township (2008), for which he was awarded the Best First Book Prize in the National Arts Merit Awards in Zimbabwe. Mlalazi has written and presented on stage in Zimbabwe eight plays, including the co-authored The Crocodile of Zambezi, winner of the 2008 Oxfam/Novib PEN Freedom of Expression Award, and Election Day,

Taffi Nyawanza is originally from Zimbabwe and now lives in Coventry. He is a writer and human rights lawyer. He is a National Flash Flood Best of the Net 2020 nominee. His short fiction has appeared in various places, including PerHappened mag, Untitled: Voices Journal, Kalahari Journal, Palewell Press and MIROnline. His manuscript of short stories was shortlisted by The St. Lawrence Book Award 2020. He was on the Exiled Writers Ink 2020 Mentoring and Translation programme and published a chapbook with them titled The Men Who Have No Knees (2021).

Nigerian-German Olumide Popoola. Photo by Naomi Woodis

Nigerian-German Olumide Popoola has published essays, poetry, short and long fiction, and a play. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and curated Berlin’s (Germany) inaugural international African Bookfest, Writing in Migration (2018). She is the creator and leader of the Arts Council funded scheme for emerging LGBTQ+ writers, ‘The Future is Back’. Her critically acclaimed novel When We Speak of Nothing was published by Cassava Republic Press in 2017. In 2019 Scottish writer Jackie Kay named her one of Britain’s best Black and Brown writers.

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Header Image: Lyra Aoko Photography