International Contemporary Writing
LATEST NEWS
Wasafiri is excited to announce that the 2022 Wasafiri Essay Prize has been awarded to Rachel Bolle-Debessay for her essay, ‘Dub Poetry and Theatre in Conversation: The Development of a Performance-Driven Aesthetic’. The 2023 Essay Prize is open until 31 May 2023.
We are pleased to be opening the 2023 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for submissions until 30 June 2023.
Wasafiri is hiring a dynamic new Digital Co-Ordinator to join our team.
Wasafiri is excited to announce an autofiction workshop series, which comprises two online writing workshops tutored by our 2022/2023 Writer-in-Residence Durre Shahwar.
Wasafiri is delighted to announce our 2022/2023 Writer-in-Residence, author and academic Durre Shahwar.
We are delighted to announce the three winners for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.
We’re delighted to introduce our five new Editors at Large for 2022/2024, located across the Middle East.
The shortlist for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize has been announced! Read on for judges’ comments, and the full list of writers and pieces selected.
Are you an early career researcher specialising in contemporary literature? Enter the 2022 Wasafiri Essay Prize now, for the chance to win £250, publication, mentoring, and more.
Now calling for applications from those in the Middle East to join Wasafiri as an Editor at Large. Apply until July 31.
Wasafiri is delighted to present this celebration of Wasafiri 110: Afterlives of Indenture, taking place on July 5, at AGO Jackman Hall in Toronto.
Read a Q&A with Marina Salandy-Brown, leading light of Caribbean literature, and Chair for the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.
Watch a short film interpretation of Nadine Aisha Jassat’s poem ‘Prayer & Breath’, first published in Issue 108: House Wisdom, filmed and edited by Jinling Wu.
Wasafiri is excited to announce ‘Beyond Protest: Writing for Action’, an online writing workshop tutored by our Writer-in-Residence Jessica Gaitán Johannesson, taking place on 26 January, from 7-9pm, on Zoom.
Announcing Poetics of Home, an online festival celebrating Chinese diaspora poets taking place 22 September – 6 October 2021.
Our new Writer-in-Residence for 2021-22 is Jessica Johannesson, a writer and climate activist whose debut novel How We Are Translated was published in February 2021.
We’re delighted to announce an additional prize that will be awarded to this year’s shortlist.
Wasafiri Editor and Director Malachi McIntosh reflects on 35 years of Wasafiri, and reveals the season of events planned around the launch of the 100th issue.
Wasafiri Editor-in-Chief Susheila Nasta is the recipient of this year’s Benson Medal, awarded by the Royal Society of Literature.
The magazine of international contemporary writing, Wasafiri, is delighted to announce the appointment of our new Writer-in-Residence, the poet and playwright Nick Makoha. In this, the 35th anniversary year of Wasafiri, we are delighted to announce the prize-winning poet and playwright Nick Makoha a…
Panelists to include guest editors Phillip Y Kim and Krys Lee as well as issue contributor Brother Anthony.
The winners of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018 are Len Lukowski, Deirdre Shanahan and Daniella Shokoohi.
Get tickets to see Bidisha in conversation with Nikesh Shukla
The Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018 shortlisted is announced. This year the judges were Malika Booker, Elleke Boehmer and Kerry Young.
Find out which events Wasafiri will be present at during the Ilkley Literature Festival 2018
The inaugural salon promises to be a space for cultural exchange, critical responses to literature and an open, shared place, either online or live, for debate and lively discussion.
To celebrate the launch of our special issue ‘Refuge’, Wasafiri will be hosting an evening long event at the Tate Modern. In a time of inflammatory headlines and damaging political rhetoric, this issue, guest edited by Bidisha, brings together a powerful roster of writers and artists to counter the populist narrative.
The competition is an international poetry competition, judged in 2017 by poet Joseph Horgan and writer Bidisha. The winning poems are available to read on Wasafiri.
Other judges of the prize this year include Sharmaine Lovegrove, the publisher of Dialogue Books, Kadija George, literary activist and founder of SABLE LitMag, and Winnie M Li, author and co-founder of Clear Lines Festival.
Wasafiri is now open for submissions of articles, essays and interviews. Please read the full details before submitting.
The prize was launched to support new writers, with no limits on age, gender, nationality or background. A winner will be chosen by our stellar line up of judges for each category: Fiction; Poetry; Life Writing. The three winners will be published by Wasafiri and receive a cash prize. They will also be offered the Chapter and Verse or Free Reads mentoring scheme in partnership with The Literary Consultancy (dependent on eligibility).
The annual Awards took place at The Dorfman, National Theatre on Friday 8 December. BAFTA award winning writer and director Amma Assante, presented the award and cheque for £6,000 to Mufaro Makubika, winner of this year’s Best New Play of the Year at this year’s Alfred Fagon Award supported by The Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
Win 4 Issues of Wasafiri Magazine – You may have seen the recent debates about diversifying the English Literature Curriculum at both G.C.S.E. and A-Level. What one book would you add to the curriculum?
The winners of the 2018 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award are the novelist and short story writer Stuart Evers, and the author, librettist and screenwriter Tessa McWatt, who is also a Trustee at Wasafiri.
18th November 2017; Dhaka, Bangladesh : Anuk Arudpragasam has been announced as the winner of the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2017 for his novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage at the Dhaka Lit Fest in Bangladesh.
Events and opportunities for writers from the wider Wasafiri community.
A new book prize, established this year, will celebrate the finest work that recognises the rich culture, heritage and landscape of the Highlands. The Highland Book Prize aims to showcase the literary talent of the region and to raise the profile of work created in or about the Highlands.
Ingrid Persaud from Trinidad and Tobago has won this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story ‘The Sweet Sop’. The story was chosen from the five regional winning stories in this year’s Prize which received a record 6,000 entries.
Susheila Nasta and the Wasafiri team are delighted to welcome Rukhsana Yasmin, an outstanding publishing professional who has recently joined us as Deputy Editor.
Wasafiri has been successful in renewing its National Portfolio Status with Arts Council England, with funding confirmed for 2018-22.
On Thursday 13 April 2017 we held readings and a panel discussion with Amaal Said, Ayisha Malik and Sabrina Mahfouz, which was chaired by Wasafiri Deputy Editor Arifa Akbar.
David Dabydeen, the celebrated Guyanese poet, novelist, and scholar talks to Susheila Nasta about his career spanning genres and continents, and how contemporary Guyanese writing tackles the intricacies of the country’s troubled past.
To celebrate the launch of The Things I Would Tell You (Saqi Books) we have an exclusive extract from the short play ‘Battleface’ by Sabrina Mahfouz.
Shiraz, a silent-era Indian film which features an early on-screen kiss, is set to be restored by the British Film Institute with a score composed and performed live by Anoushka Shankar. The film, which will be screened in London and Agra, India, later this year, is among the highlights of the UK/India 2017 Year of Culture programme, announced by the British Council, the Indian High Commission and the BFI.
Our congratulations go to the three winners of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2016!
The most compelling literatures are tragic – a life at its end, an opportunity taken away, a precious thing stolen. And it is this that links the winning entries, over the last four years, in the Life Writing category of Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize.
Alice Curham lives by the sea in Kent with her partner and son and three goldfish. She has had poetry published in Dream Catcher and Red Pepper magazines and been shortlisted in the Gladstone’s Library Short Story competition and longlisted for the Plough Prize. — The fair-haired girl took her for…
Nigeria’s Tope Folarin Wins 2013 Caine Prize By Sola Njoku Nigeria’s Tope Folarin has been awarded the 14th Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story, ‘Miracle’. The announcement was made yesterday, July 8, at a ceremony held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK. Announcing the recipient of…
Sarala Estruch was born in London in 1983 to a French mother and Indian father. Her work frequently explores questions of identity, and the interplay of different cultures. She was commended for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2015, and was a prizewinner in the PBS National Student Poetry Competition…
Richard Georges is a writer, editor and lecturer in the British Virgin Islands. His poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, sx salon, Barrelhouse, The Caribbean Writer, Wasafiri and elsewhere. In 2016, he won the Marvin E Williams Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer. — The waters train you to re…
Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo/Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces. Born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria, Akwaeke holds two degrees, including an MPA from New York University. The Miles Morland Foundation recently awarded her a 2015 Morland Writing Scholarship for her second novel…
Royston Emmanuel is a teacher trainer at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, St. Lucia, specializing in digital media, technology in education and Literature. He is inspired by the writings of Caribbean poets Mervyn Morris and Kamau Brathwaite, particularly the ability to use language in unique…
Gillian Best is a writer whose debut novel will be published by Freight Books in Spring 2017. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2013) and published in her native Canada and the UK. She currently lives and works in Bristol. The shortlisted entry below is an extract from her for…
Jill Germanacos has lived outside the UK for the past twenty years, moving from Paris to Kazakhstan to Romania with her husband’s work before settling in Greece in 2001. Despite Greece’s current woes, it has been a great place to bring up our four children and give them exposure to their partly Gree…
Mark Fiddes is a London poet whose first collection, The Chelsea Flower Show Massacre, was published by Templar Poetry in March 2015. It has since been shortlisted in the 2015 Saboteur Awards. His work has been published in Aesthetica Magazine, the Frogmore Papers and Southword and he has been reco…
Robin Ganderton has already outlived John Keats and is on course to do the same with Percy Bysshe Shelley. Last year he won the Terry Hetherington Award for Welsh Writers Under Thirty and has just been selected to receive a Literature Wales bursary to work on his novel in progress. You can follow hi…
Ovarn Brown was born in Black River, Jamaica. Beth Thompson was born in Melbourne, Australia. ‘The Kitchen Duppy’ is the first story they have written together. — The night jasmine flowers once the sun sets. It sends pollen on the wings of moths and gnats to bump into yellow-lit lanterns and drop p…
AKaiser’s poems have recently appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Temenos Journal and Coldnoon: Travel Poetics. This past spring, she was a resident at JIWAR, Spain. She is a translator, currently working on the writings of Cebrià de Montoliu, the first translator of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass into…
Ayanna Gillian Lloyd is a fiction and life writer from Trinidad & Tobago. She has been published in The Caribbean Writer and was shortlisted for Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize and the Smallaxe Literary Competition in 2014. She is an alumna of the Cropper Foundation Residential Workshop, The St Jam…
Glen Wilson lives in Portadown, Co. Armagh with his wife Rhonda and children Sian and Cain. He has been published in Iota, A New Ulster and The Interpreters House. In 2014 he won the Poetry Space competition and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He is currently working on his first…
Anne Vines is based in Melbourne, Australia. She was shortlisted in the Henry Handel Richardson Short Story Award, The Age Short Story Award and the Alan Marshall Short Story Award and commended in the Varuna Harper-Collins Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. She won the Boroondara Pri…
Paola Trimarco is a writer and linguist. Her short stories and essays have appeared in several literary magazines and her stage plays have been performed at London’s King’s Head Theatre and Arts Theatre Cambridge Studio. She has recently authored Digital Textuality published by Palgrave Macmillan. -…
