Africa

Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí (he/him/his) writes from Nigeria. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Joyland, Kenyon Review, Cincinnati Review, the minnesota review, Rust & Moth, Worcester Review...

Adedayo Agarau (he/him) is the author of the chapbooks Origin of Names (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020), The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020), and the self-published For Boys Who Went (Authorpedia...

Poet, fiction writer, and scholar Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ was born in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in Kenya. His father is the highly regarded African writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Ngũgĩ earned a PhD in English from...

Josué Guébo is an Ivorian, French-language poet and the author of seven poetry collections, several of them translated into English, including My country, tonight (Action Books, 2016) and Think of Lampedusa...

Len Verwey was born in Mozambique. His book In a Language That You Know (2017) was published in the African Poetry Book Series by University of Nebraska Press. His chapbook Otherwise Everything Goes On is ...

Jayli Abdel Rahman was born in Saai Island in northern Sudan. At the age of nine, he migrated to Egypt to join his father. He studied at al-Azhar and later in Moscow where he pursued post-graduate studies ...

Poet and university professor Taj el-Sir el-Hassan was born in Artoli, northern Sudan. He graduated from al-Azhar in 1960 and from the Maxim Gorki Literature Institute in 1966. His poetry collections include...

Mohyiddin Faris was born in Argo, northern Sudan, and migrated to Egypt as a child, where he studied in Alexandria and attended university in Cairo. Faris was the author of seven poetry collections and was...

Mustapha Sanad was the author of six poetry collections: The Old Sea (1971), Glimpses of he Old Face (1978), The Return of the Sea Penguin (1988), Papers from the Time of Crisis (1990), Inscriptions on the...

Rugaia Warrag studied philosophy at Cairo University (Khartoum branch) and sociology and gender studies at Brock University, Canada. A journalist and human rights activist, she now lives in Canada where she...

Najlaa Osman Eltom is a Sudanese writer based in Sweden. She has been active in the Sudanese literary scene since 2000. She has two poetry collections in Arabic, published in Cairo, 2007, and in Istanbul, ...

Muhammad Abdul-Hai was a prominent Sudanese poet and literary figure. He studied English literature at the University of Khartoum, and later earned a master's degree from Leeds University and a PhD from Oxford...

Cape Town poet Luvuyo Mkangelwa was born in Transkei in southern Africa. She studied Personnel Management at the Cape Technikon. Her poems have been included in The New African Poetry: An Anthology (1999) ...

Amelia Blossom Pegram is a writer, poet, teacher, and performer born in Cape Town, South Africa. After earning a BA in history and English, she began a career as a teacher but was forced to leave South Africa...

Writer Chinua Achebe was born in the village of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria. His father worked for the Church Missionary Society, and his early education was through the society’s school. At the age of eight,...

Senegalese poet, writer, and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor was born near Dakar in the town of Joal to a Fulbe mother and a Serer trader father. He was educated at the École Nationale de la France d’Outre...

Writer Marguerite Abouet was born in the Yopougon area of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. At age 12, she moved to Paris, where she completed her education. Abouet worked as a legal assistant while beginning her career...

Kenyan poet, scriptwriter, and editor Clifton Gachagua was born and raised in Nairobi and earned his undergraduate degree in biomedical science at Maseno University. In his poems, Gachagua engages themes ...

South African poet Gabeba Baderoon is the author of three poetry collections: A hundred silences (2006), which was a finalist for the University of Johannesburg Prize and the Olive Schreiner Award, The Dream...

Algerian poet Leila Djabali was imprisoned in Barberousse Prison in the 1950s for her involvement in the movement protesting French colonial rule in Algeria. She wrote the poem “For My Torturer, Lieutenant...