BREAKING GROUND: BLACK BRITISH WRITERS U.S. …€¦ · In 2013 Speaking Volumes organised the...

BLACK BRITISH WRITERS U.S. TOUR 2015 BREAKING GROUND

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BREAKING GROUND:BLACK BRITISH WRITERS

U.S. TOUR

BREAKING GROUND

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BLACK BRITISH WRITERS U.S. TOUR 2015


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BREAKING GROUND:BLACK BRITISH WRITERS

U.S. TOUR 2015

BREAKING GROUND

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HHWhen we first envisaged putting together a Black British writers’ tour of the USA, we had serious doubts that the project might work. For, we thought, there are many Black British writers who live and teach across the pond, from the award-winning Caryl Phillips to latest recruit Aminatta Forna, from poet and novelist Fred D’Aguiar to the most recognisable of them all, Zadie Smith. Moreover, some Black British writers have made notable incursions into US space through sell-out individual tours, such as the reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, or through work which has catapulted them onto the international stage, as was the case with Ben Okri’s 1991 Booker Prize winning novel The Famished Road. What need, then, to showcase Black British literary talent in America?

In 2013 Speaking Volumes organised the fourth Afroeuropes conference in London, a multi-disciplinary gathering exploring a range of subjects concerning Europe’s black populations. Combining a traditional academic forum with diverse cultural events, it was a revelation to discover that many conference delegates did not know any of the Black British (or European) artists who performed over the four days. These leaders in their field, pioneering and groundbreaking in their own research, had not discovered the depth and breadth of black European creativity. Whilst it can be argued that the language barrier has prevented many English-language readers from gaining access to black European writers, speaking to the North American delegates made it apparent that even the Black British writing on offer had not crossed the Atlantic. And, if that was true of people who were most able to discover these authors, what was the awareness of the general reading population in the USA?

The situation in Britain regarding the publication of Black British writers is far from perfect, as recently acknowledged in the 2015 Spread the Word report Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Market Place, which documents how there is still a lot to be done to achieve parity with white writers or employees in the publishing industry. Moreover, as Black British actor and comedian Lenny Henry has made clear, black artists from the UK have often had to go to the USA and achieve success there first before the UK cultural sector will take them seriously or give them a fair shot; names like Idris Elba and Marianne Jean Baptiste easily come to mind. Despite these hurdles, Britain has produced a great number of black artists over many generations, from actors to writers, from filmmakers to photographers, from dancers to poets — as well as some visionary independent grassroots structures that allowed that to happen,

INTRODUCTION


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H Hwhether black arts organisations (eg Creation for Liberation), publishers (eg Bogle L’Ouverture Publications) or theatre companies (eg Talawa).

In her powerful interview for Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing (issue 79, 2014), cultural critic and writer Bonnie Greer makes the point that the Black British experience is not the same as the Black American one; that the UK’s black populations are massively diverse, mainly coming to Britain via the connecting chain of Empire and arriving in waves over many hundreds of years. The Windrush generation, arriving in the UK to meet the post-World War Two need for workers, were those who led the way in creating a Black British consciousness through their activism, protests against racial inequality and grassroots organisation; the archives of the George Padmore Institute have a wealth of information on these movements, including those of Britain’s first black bookshop and publishers, New Beacon Books (founded in 1966). Fifty years on from the launch of this pioneering publishing house, it is more than timely that Black British writers start to make their presence felt in numbers far beyond the UK’s shores. To show the country with the biggest number of English-language readers the diverse and multi-faceted work that Black British writers produce.

The Breaking Ground tour, then, developed in a way to highlight this as much as possible and therefore includes people who write novels, poetry, plays, graphic stories, travelogues, non-fiction, essays, articles, short stories, reviews and more. It also includes people whose backgrounds may be Black British born and bred, Caribbean, African, African American, mixed race ... women and men of various generations and at different stages of their careers. All of whom have had little access to American readers and audiences — until now. Taking that theme one step further, this brochure is just the tip of the iceberg of Black British literary talent, naming only fifty out of thousands of writers. We have deliberately included people you may not have heard of before; some have yet to publish a book but command serious attention through their performance. We hope that Breaking Ground, the tour and the brochure, will both excite US audiences as they discover this hidden world of quality literature from just across the Atlantic and awaken the UK publishing sector to the wonderful world of writing that Black British authors are creating in all its myriad forms.

Sharmilla Beezmohun, Sarah Sanders and Nicholas Chapman, Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions

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H DIRAN ADEBAYO is a novelist, short fiction writer and cultural critic known for his stylish, inventive tales of London and the lives of African diasporans. His work is characterised by its interest in multiple cultural identities, subcultures and distinctive use of language. His debut novel Some Kind of Black won numerous awards including the 1996 Saga Prize and a Betty Trask Award. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His second novel, the ‘neo-noir fairytale’ My Once Upon a Time was also widely praised and solidified his reputation. Diran co-edited New Writing 12, the British Council’s annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature. He has written stories and scripts for television and radio, including the 2005 documentary Out of Africa for BBC2.He’s written extensively for the national press and appeared on shows including Newsnight, The Culture Show and the Today programme, discussing everything from politics to popular culture, including sport, the centrepiece of his next book, the memoir Random, and Cricket. In 2003 The Times Literary Supplement named him one of its Best Young British Novelists and in 2006 Diran was electeda Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

THE TEN TOUR WRITERS

www.diranadebayo.com


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H JAY BERNARD won the 2004 London Respect Slam and is the recipient of a Foyles Young Poet award (2005).

She is from London and has been published in numerous international journals and magazines.

Her first pamphlet Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl was the Poetry Book Society’s pamphlet choice for summer that year. She was the inaugural 2012 writer-in-residence at the Arts House and National University of Singapore and 2013 City Read young writer in residence at London Metropolitan Archives. Her second book, English Breakfast, appeared in 2013.

Jay is also a programmer for BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival and, as a graphic artist, her work has appeared on the cover of Wasafiri and in Chroma, Diva and Litro. In her own words: ‘I am interested in graphic/public art, film, literature, technology, cyber-feminism, queerness and impending doom(s).’

www.jaybernard.co.uk

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H BERNARDINE EVARISTO is the award-winning British-Nigerian author of seven books including her latest novel, Mr Loverman, about a septuagenarian Caribbean London man who is closet homosexual (2013). Her writing is characterised by experimentation and subverting the myths of various Afro-diasporic and British histories and identities. Her writing also spans verse fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism for the Guardian and Independent, and verse drama for theatre and BBC radio. Her many editorships include the Poetry Society of Great Britain’s winter centenary issue of Poetry Review in 2012. She has undertaken over 140 international tours as a writer and in 2015 was The Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, USA. She earned her PhD in Creative Writing at Goldmsiths, University of London and she is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London. Her most recent awards are the Triangle Publishing Ferro Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction (USA) and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize (UK), both for Mr Loverman. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004; of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006, and she became an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2009.

www.bevaristo.com


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H GABRIEL GBADAMOSI is an Irish-Nigerian poet, playwright and essayist born in London. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University. His plays include Shango, Hotel Orpheu and, for radio, The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3), which won the Richard Imison Award.

He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 and Art Beat on the World Service. Vauxhall, his first novel, won the Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize for Fiction and Best International Novel at the 2013 Sharjah Book Fair.

Gabriel lives in London and is RLF writing fellow at the City & Guilds of London Art School.As a poet he has worked on book collaborations with visual artists including The Second Life of Shells with Mandy Bonnell and Sun-Shine, Moonshine with Conroy/Sanderson. He is currently working on his second novel.

www.gabrielgbadamosi.com

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H COLIN GRANT is a historian, producer for BBC radio and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Caribbean Studies. His books include: Negro with a Hat, a biography of Marcus Garvey; I&I, The Natural Mystics, a group biography of the original Wailers; and Bageye at the Wheel, his memoir of a 1970s suburban childhood in Luton published in 2012, which was shortlisted for the Pen/Ackerley Prize.

As well as an author, Colin teaches creative non-fiction writing, most recently for Arvon and Sierra Nevada College. Colin joined the BBC in 1991 and has worked as a TV script editor and radio producer of arts and science programmes on Radio 4 and the World Service.

He has written and directed plays including The Clinic, based on the lives of the photojournalists Tim Page and Don McCullin, and has written and produced several radio drama-documentaries.

www.colingrant.info


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H NICK MAKOHA was born in Uganda but fled the Idi Amin dictatorship. He subsequently lived in Kenya and Saudi Arabia and currently lives in London.

As the director of the Youth Poetry Network he provides a charismatic and responsive approach to workshop facilitation in businesses and schools. Clients include the London-Chicago Teenage Poetry Slam, the National Endowment for Science and NESTA. His first pamphlet, The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, was published by flipped eye in 2005. His second pamphlet, The Second Republic, was published in the African Poetry Book Fund’s ‘Seven New Generation African Poets’ series and will be released as a full collection by Peepal Tree Press. Nick’s one man show My Father & Other Superheroes recently toured the UK, and he has also toured to the USA, Finland, Czech Republic and the Netherlands. He was part of the first The Complete Works writers programme and published as part of the culminating Ten: New Poets (Bloodaxe Books). Nick was awarded the 2015 Brunel African Poetry Prize, shared with Sudan’s Safia Elhillo.

www.nickmakoha.com

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H KAREN MCCARTHY WOOLF writes poetry, drama and short fiction for print, online, broadcast and live platforms. She has been awarded residencies at the literary development agency Spread the Word, the City of El Gouna, Egypt and The November Project — a tidal power sustainability initiative on the River Thames.

Her poetry chapbook The Worshipful Company of Pomegranate Slicers was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year and she was a runner up in the Cardiff International Poetry Prize with her poem ‘The Wish’. In 2010 a selection of her new poetry was published in Ten New Poets, an anthology showcasing the work of poets selected for The Complete Works development programme. She then edited the Ten: The New Wave anthology in 2014. Karen was also editor of the critically acclaimed anthology Bittersweet and is currently on the editorial boards of literary journal Wasafiri and Magma magazine and reviews for Modern Poetry in Translation. Karen’s most recent collection, An Aviary of Small Birds, was published by Carcanet in 2014 to critical acclaim.

www.mccarthywoolf.com


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H JOHNY PITTS is a travel writer, television presenter and photographer. He is interested in the interplay of black and European culture as a way of understanding his own identity and shining a light on second/new generation black European identities. As an author he won a Decibel Penguin Prize for new writing and received an ENAR Award in 2013 for his project Afropean’s contribution to a racism-free Europe. As a youth worker Johny spent four years mentoring young people of mixed heritage. This has been followed by ten years as a writer and presenter for most of the major UK television broadcasters, currently the BBC.

As a photographer, he collaborated with author and mentor Caryl Phillips on a project called ‘A Bend in The River’ looking at immigration; he had his first international exhibition in 2013 at Liege University’s ‘What is Africa to Me Now?’ conference. His photographs have appeared on the front covers of The Journal of Postcolonial Writing and Harvard University’s W E B DuBois Institute Transition magazine, with an essay on Afropean identity published in the latter.

www.afropean.com

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H ROGER ROBINSON was chosen by Decibel as one of fifty writers who have influenced the Black British writing canon. A Trinidadian writer and performer who has lived in the UK for the last twenty years, he has received commissions from Theatre Royal Stratford East (where he has also been an Associate Artist), The National Trust, London Open House, The National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. His books include the fiction Adventures in 3D and poetry collections Suitcase, Suckle – Winner of the Peoples Book Prize – and The Butterfly Hotel, from which the poem ‘Trinidad Gothic’ was Highly Commended by the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize.

Roger has created three one-man spoken word shows, delivered workshops and toured extensively abroad with the British Council. He is a co-founder of both Spoke Lab and the international writing collective Malika’s Kitchen. As a musician he has released a solo album, Illclectica, and is lead vocalist for King Midas Sound, whose critically acclaimed debut album Waiting for You was released on Hyperdub Records. His new solo EP ‘Novella’ is out now.

www.rogerrobinsononline.com


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H WARSAN SHIRE is a Kenyan-born Somali poet, writer, editor and educator who named London’s first Young Poet Laureate in 2014. Warsan has read her work extensively all over Britain and internationally and her debut book Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth was published in 2012 by flipped eye. Her poems have been published in Wasafiri, Magma and Poetry Review and in the anthology The Salt Book of Younger Poets (2011) and Bloodaxe’s Ten: The New Wave (2014). She is the current poetry editor at SPOOK magazine.

In 2012 she represented Somalia at Poetry Parnassus, the festival of poetry from around the world at the Southbank Centre, London, as part of the Cultural Olympiad. She is a Complete Works II poet. Her poetry has been translated into Italian, Danish, Estonian, Spanish and Portuguese. Warsan was also the winner of the 2013 Inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize and in 2014 was selected as Queensland, Australia’s poet in residence, where she spent six weeks collaborating with the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts.

www.warsanshire.com

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BLACK BRITISH WRITERS U.S. TOUR 2015ROW 1:

H ADISAH DEAN ATTA H LOUISA ADJOA PARKER H PATIENCE AGBABI H JACKIE KAY H SEGUN LEE-FRENCH H ANDREA LEVY H FEMI MARTIN

ROW 2:

H RAYMOND ANTROBUSH MALORIE BLACKMANH YEMISI BLAKE H MALIKA BOOKER H BRIDGET MINAMOREH COURTTIA NEWLANDH IRENOSEN OKOJIE H HELEN OYEYEMI

ROW 3:

H CECIL BROWNE H KAYO CHINGONYIH CRISIS H YVVETTE EDWARDSH NII PARKES H MIKE PHILLIPS H DEANNA RODGER H LEONE ROSS

ROW 4:

H ZENA EDWARDS H INUA ELLAMS H DIANA EVANS H GEORGE THE POET H JACOB SAM-LA ROSE H DREDA SAY MITCHELLH JENNEBA SIE-JALLOHH DOROTHEA SMARTT

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H SALENA GODDEN H CATHERINE JOHNSON H ANTHONY JOSEPH H PETER KALU H YOMI GREEDS SODE H GEMMA WEEKES H BRIAN CHIKWAVA H RUEL WHITE

FORTYSTARSOF BLACKBRITISHLITERATURE


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HHH ADISAAdisa is a London-based poet who has performed widely - from pubs and theatres to Buckingham Palace and from festivals to schools and day centres for senior citizens. He has been a Hackney Poet Laureate and a winner of New Performance Poet of the Year. He has toured England with his one-person show, 1968 - The Year That Never Ended, and has also performed in Switzerland, Botswana, Italy, Nigeria and Sweden. As a workshop facilitator he aims to make poetry and performance accessible to all. Adisa’s book Lip Hopping With The Fundi-Fu was published in 2010 and his poetry has been featured in various anthologies.

H DEAN ATTADean Atta is a writer and performance poet. He has been commissioned to write poems for the Damilola Taylor Trust, Keats House Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

Dean won the 2012 London Poetry Award and was named as one of the most influential LGBT people by the Independent on Sunday Pink List 2012.

His debut poetry collection I Am Nobody’s Nigger was published in 2013 by The Westbourne Press. He lives in London and performs internationally.

H LOUISA ADJOA PARKERLouisa Adjoa Parker is a poet and black history writer of British and Ghanaian heritage, who works in mental health supporting the black and minority ethnic communities. She writes as a woman, a single parent and most of all as a human being trying to make sense of the world. Her first poetry collection, Salt-sweat and Tears, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 by Cinnamon Press. Her poem ‘Rag Doll’ was highly commended and included in the Forward Book of Poetry 2008. She has written a book exploring the history of African and Caribbean people in Dorset over the past 400 years called Dorset’s Hidden Histories.

H PATIENCE AGBABI Renowned for her performances on page and stage, Patience Agbabi’s poems have been broadcast on television and radio all over the world. Her work has also appeared on the London Underground and human skin.

In 2004 she was nominated one of the UK’s Next Generation Poets. She has lectured in Creative Writing at several UK universities and she is currently a Fellow in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University. Patience has published four poetry collections, including 2014’s critically acclaimed Telling Tales, a modern rewriting of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in her own poetic style.


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HHH RAYMOND ANTROBUSRaymond Antrobus is a spoken word poet and photographer, born and bred in Hackney. He is co-curator of Chill Pill/Keats House Forum, has performed alongside writers such as Margaret Atwood, Benjamin Zephaniah and Kwame Dawes, and has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Bespoken Word. He has been performing poetry since 2007 and is the International Farrago slam champion 2008, Anti-Slam Champ 2010 and Canterbury Word Slam Champ 2012. He has performed across the UK as well as touring Germany, Italy, South Africa and the USA. He is one half of ‘Speed Camera Shy’, a music project combining spoken word with dub step.

H MALORIE BLACKMAN Malorie Blackman has written over fifty books and is acknowledged as one of today’s most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers. She has been awarded many prizes for her work, including the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award. Malorie has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. She has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. Malorie is the UK Children’s Laureate 2013–15.

H YEMISI BLAKEYemisi Blake is a British writer and photographer based in London, England. His work is concerned with narratives of place and urban life, often featuring collaborations with individuals and communities in cities. Using literature, photography and performance, his work includes productions, publications, installations and exhibitions in the UK and internationally. He has been commissioned by organisations including Art on the Underground, the British Council, Southbank Centre, Tate and Delfina Foundation. His work has appeared in various publications including Wasafiri, Poetry Review and a collection from flipped eye books.

H MALIKA BOOKER Malika Booker is a writer, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist whose work spans literature, education and cross-arts. She has appeared worldwide both independently and with the British Council. She is an experienced creative writing course leader and has run courses for various organisations including the Arvon Foundation, the Royal National Theatre and the Young Vic. She jointly runs Malika’s Kitchen, a writers’ collective based in London and Chicago. Her book, Breadfruit, was published in 2007 by flipped eye; the collection Pepper Seed appeared in 2013 from Peepal Tree Press and was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize.

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HHH CECIL BROWNE Cecil Browne was born in St Vincent and the Grenadinesin 1957 and came to England in 1970. He has been a lecturer in Maths for twenty-five years and is passionate about cricket and the Sunday Times crossword. Creative writing is a more recent interest and in 2010 his first book, The Moon Is Following Me, was published by Matador. It is a collection of six short stories that ‘recall an era when the village was the centre of life in St Vincent and the Grenadines’. His second book, Feather Your Tingaling: Caribbean Short Stories, was published in 2012by Matador.

H KAYO CHINGONYI Kayo Chingonyi was born in Zambia and moved to the UK at the age of six. His presence on the London poetry scene was first felt in 2003 when he won the Poetry Society’s Rise Youth Slam Championship. He regularly leads workshops, helping aspiring young poets to achieve success similar to his own. In 2012 he represented Zambia at Poetry Parnassus staged by the Southbank Centre, was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and shortlisted for the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in a range of magazines and anthologies and in a debut pamphlet entitled Some Bright Elegance (Salt Publishing).

H CRISIS Crisis is part of the London spoken word scene, travelling to New York for the British Council as part of the UK in NY festival at the world-renowned Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe. He has performed on the growing underground black comedy circuit, on radio, at a political conference and at numerous performance venues, including the Southbank Centre, the Union Chapel and for Jamaican Liberation Day celebrations in Manchester. Crisis has been commissioned by Apples & Snakes, one of the UK’s leading spoken word organisations, to write for the Writers on the Storm and Broken Word tours.

H YVVETTE EDWARDSYvvette Edwards has had a varied working life in housing, care and benefits. She was born in and continues to live in East London.

Her debut 2011 novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, tells the story of Jinx whose mother was stabbed to death in their home. Described as a ‘shocking, powerful and stylishly written debut marking the arrival of a distinctive new voice in British fiction’, it was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and a host of other nominations. Her next novel, The Mother, is forthcoming from Macmillan.


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H HH ZENA EDWARDSZena Edwards has become known as one the most unique voices of performance poetry to come out of London. She was nominated for the Arts Foundation Award for Performance Poetry 2007 and won the Hidden Creatives Award 2012. She has been involved in performance for twenty years: as a writer/poet performer, facilitator, creative project developer and vocalist after graduating from Middlesex University. She recently studied at The London International School for Performing Arts. Zena has written and performed two one woman shows, Security and Travelling Light, which have toured nationally and internationally with quality reviews and critical acclaim.

H INUA ELLAMS Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright & performer, a graphic artist & designer. He is a Complete Works poet alumni, a playwright-in-residence at Soho Theatre, resident at the Southbank Centre’s Poetry Library and a graphic designer at White Space Creative Agency. Across his work, identity, displacement and destiny are reccurring themes in which he also tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African storytelling with contemporary poetry/pencil with pixel/texture with vector images. His first two books of poetry are published by flipped eye, and several playsby Oberon.

H DIANA EVANSDiana Evans was a dancer before she became a writer. As a journalist she has contributed features, criticism and essays to many national publications. Her first novel, 26a, was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers, received a Betty Trask award and Diana was named the Decibel Writer of the Year winner at the 2006 British Book Awards. It has been translated into twelve languages. Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published by Chatto & Windus to critical acclaim. She is currently writing her third novel and reviews books for the national press.

H GEORGE THE POETGeorge the Poet’s socio-political, street-savvy verse has attracted the attention of artists, actors, politicians and royalty alike. He has broken new ground on the poetry circuit, is a regular speaker for TED and an advisor for the BBC diversity trust. Whilst studying he won a social enterprise competition and used the £16,000 prize to fund a series of poetry workshops for underprivileged children in London, saying that ‘the poet’s role is usually to provide thoughtful social commentary.’ He is signed to Island Records and features on various high profile records. George’s first book of poetry, Search Party, was published in 2015 by Virgin Books.

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HHH SALENA GODDEN Salena Godden writes and performs poetry, fiction, memoir, radio drama and lyrics. In 2014 her crowd-funded memoir, Springfield Road, was published by Unbound Books. She regularly appears on television and radio including Woman’s Hour, The Verb and Saturday Live, and most recently wrote and presented a documentary, Try A Little Tenderness – The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks, for BBC Radio 4. Salena leads workshops, performs poetry internationally and works with musician Peter Coyte as duo SaltPeter. Her most recent book of poems, Fishing in The Aftermath/Poems 1994-2014, was published by Burning Eye Books in 2014.

H CATHERINE JOHNSONCatherine Johnson is a born-and-bred Londoner who lives by the sea. She studied film at Central Saint Martins School of Art and has since written prolifically for young readers. Her novel, Sawbones, won the 2014 Young Quills Award for historical fiction and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Catherine also writes for film, notably the critically acclaimed Bullet Boy, and TV, including Holby City. Her most recent book, The Curious Tale of Lady Caraboo, inspired by the true story of a cobbler’s daughter from Devon who became a cause célèbre in Georgian England, was published this year by Random House.

H ANTHONY JOSEPH Anthony Joseph is a Trinidadian-born poet, novelist, musician and lecturer. He has published four poetry collections: Desafinado, Teragaton, Bird Head Son and Rubber Orchestras, and the hybrid novel The African Origins of UFOs. He was selected by the Arts Council of England and literary organisation Renaissance One as one of fifty black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to contemporary British literature. Described as a ‘leader of the black avant-garde in Britain,’ he has created four critically acclaimed albums to accompany the publication of his books. Anthony performs and tours internationally, accompanied by his band The Spasm Band.

H PETER KALU Peter Kalu is the son of Nigerian and Danish migrants who grew up in the immigrant communities of Manchester.

He began writing at Moss Side Write, a local black writing workshop, and has written five books to date, two radio plays broadcast on the BBC, and several works for theatre.

His most recent novel, Little Jack Horner, was published by Suitcase Books. Over 30,000 people have borrowed his books from UK libraries and he was Winner of a BBC Dangerous Comedy Award in 2003.


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H HH JACKIE KAY Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh in 1961 and has written all her life. Her poetry collections have won or been shortlisted for awards across the board. Her first novel, Trumpet, won the Author’s Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her first novel for children, Strawgirl, a lyrical slice of magical realism, was a huge critical success. In 2006 Jackie was awarded an MBE. Her book, Red Dust Road, about the search for her biological parents, won the 2011 Scottish Investment Mortgage Trust Book of the Year. Her most recent novel, Reality, Reality, was published in 2012 by Pan Macmillan.

H SEGUN LEE-FRENCHNigerian Mancunian Segun Lee-French is a singer, poet, producer/composer, playwright, filmmaker, club promoter and founder member of Manchester’s Speakeasy People poetry collective. As a poet and playwright, his work has been commissioned for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Manchester. His debut solo show, Bro 9 at Contact Theatre, won Best Fringe Performer & Best Design at the prestigious Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. In 2005 he was nominated for the Arts Foundation Performance Poetry award, and is currently writing a play and a musical. Segun’s first poetry collection, Praise Songs for Aliens, was published by Suitcase Press in 2009.

H ANDREA LEVYWhen Andrea Levy began writing, there was little published about the Black British experience, so she wrote the novels that she had always wanted to read — entertaining books reflecting the experiences of black Britons, looking closely and perceptively at the UK and the intimacies binding British history with the Caribbean. Andrea has written five novels, including Small Island which won numerous awards. Her latest novel is The Long Song. Set in Jamaica during the last years of slavery and the period immediately after emancipation, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

H FEMI MARTINFemi Martin is a writer, performer and facilitator from London. She was appointed the Dickens 2012 Young Writer in Residence and was commissioned to write five pieces of flash fiction inspired by quotes from Dickens novels. She has performed at various events, festivals and venues including Literary Death Match (winner), Tongue Fu and Wilderness Festival. Femi is head judge at StorySLAM:Live, a storytelling competition, and has run workshops in partnership with many organisations including The Barbican Centre, The Reading Agency and The George Orwell Prize. She is currently developing her one woman show, How to Die of a Broken Heart.

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HHH BRIDGET MINAMOREBridget Minamore is a writer from and based in south-east London. She has an English degree from UCL and runs poetry workshops for young people around the country. In 2012 she was part of The Guardian newspaper’s ‘£100 Challenge’ for which she produced the poetry collection The Ice-Cream Manifesto. She is part of the creative team behind Brainchild Festival and in 2013 was shortlisted to be London’s first Young Poet Laureate. Bridget was recently chosen as one of The Hospital Club’s Emerging Creatives for 2015, with whom she is developing a writing project called Losing My Last First Tooth.

H COURTTIA NEWLANDCourttia Newland is a novelist, playwright and screenwriter from London of Jamaican and Bajan heritage. Critically acclaimed novels include Snakeskin, The Dying Wish and The Scholar.

He is the co-editor of IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain and The Global Village. Courttia was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Alfred Fagon Award and the Frank O’Connor Award. His last book, The Gospel According to Cane,was released in the UK by Telegram Books and was his first to be published in the USA, by Brooklyn-based Akashic Books.

H IRENOSEN OKOJIEIrenosen Okojie is a writer, curator and Arts Project Manager. She has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Southbank Centre and the Caine Prize. Her writing has been featured in the Guardian and the Observer. Her short stories have been published internationally, including Kwani 07 and Phatitude.She was a selected writer by Theatre Royal Stratford East and Writer in Residence for TEDx East End. In 2014, she was the Prize Advocate for the SI Leeds Literary Prize and she is a mentor for the ‘Pen to Print’ project. Irenosen’s first novel Butterfly Fish was published in 2015 by Jacaranda Books.

H HELEN OYEYEMI Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first novel, The Icarus Girl, while still at school studying for her A-levels. While at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge two of her plays, Juniper’s Whitening and Victimese, were performed by fellow students to critical acclaim and subsequently published by Methuen. White is for Witching, described as having ‘roots in Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe’, was a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award. In 2013 Helen was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Her fifth novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, was published by Picador in 2014.


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H HH NII PARKES Nii Ayikwei Parkes has earned recognition as a poet, novelist, playwright, editor, socio-cultural commentator and performer. In 2007 he received Ghana’s national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy. Nii’s debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize and his work has been translated into Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, German and Arabic. His latest books of poetry are the Michael Marks Award-shortlisted pamphlet, ballast: a remix and The Makings of You from Peepal Tree Press. He is a member of the Ghana Association of Writers, the African Writers Abroad chapter of International PEN and the Society of Authors.

H MIKE PHILLIPS Mike Phillips was born in Georgetown, Guyana beforehis family migrated to the UK. He worked as a journalist and broadcaster for the BBC and as a lecturer before becoming a full-time writer in 1992. He is best known for his crime fiction, including novels featuring black journalist Sam Dean which won him a Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger. He co-wrote Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain to accompany a BBC television series about the Caribbean workers who settled inpost-war Britain. Mike has written several non-fiction works focusing on the Black British experience including his latest book, Kind of Union.

H DEANNA RODGERDeanna Rodger made a name for herself after winning the UK Slam Poetry competition, touring Germany and performing commissions in places such as Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and 2012 Olympic Team Welcome Ceremony, as well as three TedX performances.

She acts, facilitates workshops and is a co-founder of regular spoken word events Chill Pill and Come Rhyme With Me, as well being an artist in residence at The Roundhouse. Deanna is a member of prominent poetry collectives, Point Blank Poets (Biennale UK Artist International award 2011) and Keats House Poetry Forum.

H LEONE ROSSLeone Ross was born in Coventry but was raised and educated in Jamaica, returning to the UK in 1990.

Her first novel, All The Blood Is Red was published 1996 and shortlisted for the Orange Prize. The follow-up, 2000’s Orange Laughter, was named one of Wasafiri’s 25 Most Influential Books. She has represented the British Council overseas and in 2004 was chosen as one of fifty black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to contemporary British literature. Leone’s short fiction and essays have been widely anthologised and her third novel, This One Sky Day, is due out in 2016.

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HHH JACOB SAM-LA ROSEJacob Sam-La Rose’s poetry has been characterisedas vivid, masterly and carefully structured. He is widely recognised as an indefatigable facilitator, mentor and supporter of young and emerging poets and as an advocate for the positive impact of new technology on literary and artistic practice and collaboration.

His debut pamphlet, Communion, was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and his collection Breaking Silence (2012) was shortlisted for a Forward Poetry Prize. He has been widely published in a range of journals and anthologies, including 2012’s Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian Poets.

H DREDA SAY MITCHELLDreda Say Mitchell is the author of five novels. Her debut, Running Hot, was awarded a John Creasey Dagger for best first-time crime novel by the Crime Writers’ Association. 2011’s Hit Girls (Hodder & Stoughton), was voted a top ten book of 2011. She contributed a short story to the Mystery Writers of America’s anthology Vengeance. She has written for radio and appears regularly on BBC programmes, as well as writing for newspapers including The Guardian and Independent. She is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by black and Asian women in the UK.

H JENNEBA SIE-JALLOHJenneba Sie-Jalloh left formal teaching to work in the arts. She has worked as project manager, programmer and workshop facilitator and as a consultant for the British Council. Jenneba has had poetry, essays and fiction published in a number of anthologies. In 2008 she completed an MA in writing and finished her first novel. She has a deep interest in oral history and edited All Saints and Sinners, a collection of interviews capturing the experiences of a group of teenage boys (including her father) who stowed away from Sierra Leone in the 1940s and settled in Notting Hill, London.

H DOROTHEA SMARTTDorothea Smartt, born and raised in London, is of Barbadian heritage. Dubbed ‘Brit born Bajan international’ by Kamau Brathwaithe, her poetry appears in several journals and groundbreaking anthologies, including IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain. Her first collection, Connecting Medium, features a Forward Prize award-winning poem. Her video/poetry installation was part of LandFall, a 2009 exhibition exploring the Atlantic Ocean as natural phenomenon and transporter of dreams and peoples at the Museum of London Docklands. Dorothea regularly facilitates poetry workshops and has read and performed in Wales, Hungary, Denmark, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Jamaica, Bahrain, Egypt and the USA.


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H HH YOMI GREEDS SODEYomi Sode, also known as GREEdS (Generating Rhymes to Engage the EnlighteneD Soul), is a performer, a poet and an entertainer with a love for music. Poetry provides him with a therapeutic space that has no boundaries where he can create his own pace and tell his story his way. His aim is to ‘bring a new sound to performance poetry and profile the art form to those who are not aware’.

GREEdS currently has two audio releases: Volume in Silence and READY EP.

H GEMMA WEEKESGemma Weekes is a poet, musician and writer whose debut novel, Love Me published by Chatto & Windus n 2009, garnered rave reviews and has been translated into Dutch and Italian. She has performed and devised pieces for venues all over the UK and abroad includingthe Jazz Café, the Southbank Centre and New Jersey Performing Arts Centre.

Her television and radio appearances include SaintLucia’s Nobel Laureate Week and a collaboration with Nitin Sawhney for BBC Radio 3’s The Verb. Gemma’s writing has appeared in several anthologies and journals. She is working on her second novel, tentatively entitled Rainbow Like You.

H BRIAN CHIKWAVABrian Chikwava is among the exciting new generation of writers emerging from the African continent. The Zimbabwean author’s short story ‘Seventh Street Alchemy’ was awarded the 2004 Caine Prize for African Writing and his debut novel, Harare North, was published by Vintage to critical acclaim in 2010; the Scotsman called it ‘A debut novel at once lyrical and gritty, offering an unsentimental view of the African immigrant experience in London’s Brixton’. He has been a Charles Pick fellow at the University of East Anglia, a contributor to Granta and is part of the advisory board of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing. Brian lives in London and is working on his second novel.

H RUEL WHITERuel White was born in Montserrat, coming to England when he was four. During the 1970s-1980s he was active in Rock Against Racism, contributing both musically and organisationally. After a life-changing meeting with John La Rose, Sarah White and Michael La Rose of New Beacon Books, he began writing. He has had several short stories and a novel published by New Beacon and also wrote stories for broadcast by the BBC. Ruel gained a degree in Literature and Third World Studies and has taught at various schools in London. He returned to writing in recent years and has completed his latest novel Astronauts.

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BREAKING GROUND has been made possible by the generous support ofArts Council England, and The Burroughs Fund in Southern Studies at Coastal Carolina University. In Spring 2016 SPEAKING VOLUMES arebringing BREAKING GROUND to the West Coast of the USA.

If you are interested in hosting the tour or in any of the Black British writers inthis booklet please contact: [email protected]

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BREAKING GROUND: BLACK BRITISH WRITERS U.S. …€¦ · In 2013 Speaking Volumes organised the...

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