Wasafiri's 20th Anniversary Wasafiri wishes to thank all those who supported our twentieth anniversary celebrations in 2004 and after the success of the Birthday Tour, the magazine will be organising literary events on a more regular basis. Click below to enlarge photos. Writing Across Worlds Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk, the book of interviews published to mark our anniversary, edited by Susheila Nasta, is still available in all good bookshops. Authors interviewed include: Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Monica Ali, Amit Chaudhuri, David Dabydeen, Bernardine Evaristo, Maggie Gee, Lorna Goodison, Nadine Gordimer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Wilson Harris, Keri Hulme, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jackie Kay, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, George Lamming, Rohinton Mistry, V S Naipaul, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Michael Ondaatje, Caryl Phillips, Joan Riley, Salman Rushdie, Nayantara Sahgal, Sam Selvon, Vikram Seth, Zadie Smith, Wole Soyinka, Moyez Vassanji and Marina Warner.

History … and future
Wasafiri was first published in 1984 under the auspices of ATCAL (the Association for the teaching of African, Caribbean, Asian and Associated Literatures) in response to the growing need for a journal that would provide coverage on the diverse range of minority literatures in Britain and the Commonwealth. ATCAL’s aims were twofold: firstly to ensure that minority literatures got onto educational curricula in Britain and secondly to make these literatures available to a wider and more general readership. Indeed the name of the magazine, Wasafiri (which comes from Kiswahili, meaning ‘cultural traveller’) sought to emphasise the key ethos of the publication. Since 1978, when ATCAL came into existence, the association had held an annual conference which brought together leading creative writers and interested individuals including Chinua Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Dennis Brutus, Micere Mugu, Lewis Nkosi, Sam Selvon, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Earl Lovelace. It was out of these successful conferences that Wasafiri developed, under the editorship of Susheila Nasta and a host of Associate Editors and Advisors such as Prabhu Guptara, Robert Fraser, Robert Bush, Angus Calder, Joan Griffiths, Lyn Innes, Louis James, Alastair Niven, John Thieme and Vicky Unwin. Susheila Nasta continues to edit the magazine and many of those who supported the publication at the very beginning are still involved in its production. Unfortunately ATCAL folded in the early 1990s, although its work has been continued by ACLALS (the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) and annual conferences are still held.

This does not mean that Wasafiri speaks exclusively to an older generation of readers. On the contrary, two decades on, the magazine remains at the forefront of literary publishing today — featuring new work promoting new writers, addressing pertinent issues and reflecting not only Britain's diverse cultural heritage but also attending to the creative work inspired by demographic and cultural shifts worldwide.

Once a small publication, edited and produced in a front rooms between London and Kent, it is now an Arts Council and Taylor and Francis supported, major, tri-annual magazine with its own office and editorial team at the Open University in London. And it continues to grow … From 2008 Wasafiri will become a quarterly magazine and plans for the production of Wasafiri in India are already underway.

Vision

From ‘Perspectives on African, Caribbean, Asian and black British Literature’ to ‘Magazine of International Contemporary Writing’, Wasafiri's subtitles reflect the development of the magazine’s focus. Today Wasafiri gives particular prominence to writers and artists whose literary and historical concerns do not necessarily fit neatly within the national rubrics of any one particular movement, tradition or culture. And as one of the only publications to have provided a sustained outlet for new writing, it has tracked the emergence of many now established international voices. With its lively intermix of fiction, poetry, interviews, scholarly articles and reviews, Wasafiri represents a unique forum for those keen to open up the parameters of contemporary global perspectives and make imaginative connections between the particularities of different literary worlds. Writers recently featured in Wasafiri include Leila Aboulela, Segun Afolabi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Kamau Brathwaite, Brian Chikwava, Kwame Dawes, Anita Desai, Lorna Goodison, Bernardine Evaristo, Maggie Gee, Romesh Gunesekera, Adbulrazak Gurnah, Stuart Hall, Leena Dhingra, Chika Unigwe, Kelwyn Sole, Hima Raza, Jamal Mahjoub, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jean Arasanayagam.

Drawing on a wide breadth of modern culture, Wasafiri also publishes regular articles on art and has a respected reviews section. Contemporary artists covered recently include Isaac Julien, Chris Ofili, Raqib Shaw, Steve McQueen, Andres Serrano, Chila Kumari Burman, Fred Wilson and Yinka Shonibare. The Reviews section provides informed critical discussion of works by a range of international, black and diasporic authors as well as in-depth assessments of scholarly monographs.