Issa Kone is a poet and retired teacher born in 1951 in Saint-Louis, Senegal. He started writing poems in the 70’s when he was still a student. He was the very first winner of the FIPIA (Festival Itinérant de Poésie Internationale en Afrique) poetry competion in 2008.
Dieynaba Sidibé, known as Zeina or Zeinixx, is a slam poet, visual and graffiti artist from Senegal.
Zeinixx is a self-taught artist who started painting in 2004 at the tender age of 14. In 2009 she became the very first female graffiti artist. Renowned Senegalese graffiti artist Grafixx al Mukhtar has mentored her since the beginning of her career, and as homage to him she named herself Zeinixx, which is a fusion of her name Zeina and his name Grafixx.
Zeinixx has performed and exhibited her work at both local and international festivals.
Moncef, commonly known by his pseudonym Brayan Retour, is Algerian poet who was born and raised in Constantine. Writing poetry is his biggest passion and he uses it as an escape from his day job as an architect.
Hermann Kenfact was born and bred in Yaoundé Cameroon. Hermann is a poet, a writer and playwright. In 2008, he was the recipient of the best creator African by the APPIA (Association for the Protection and the Intellectual Property in Africa), he also received the 1st price for the African literature CREAYOUTH by l’OMPI (Organization mondial for the property intellectual).
Abdoulaye Guisse is a Senegalese poet with two published collections of poetry: Perle choisie and Les vertus de líespoir.
He is a public law graduate and is very interested in the international humanitarian law, specifically on the contemporary armed conflicts contexts.
Alain Alfred Moutapam is an international lawyer, founder of Tamtamarts a cultural NGO, and a consultant in cultural diplomacy and creative industries.
He was a member of the organising committee for the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in 2010 and lecturer on the subject of cultural diplomacy and creative industries as new avenues for development of Africa.
He has been involved in several prestigious conferences, including the National Assembly of France, Unesco, in many French councils, the European Parliament in Brussels in his dual capacity as poet and cultural expert.
He is the author of the collection of poems entitled New poetry for a Better World published by Tamtamarts.
Mathadjé Yogolipaka is publisher, poet and literary critic from Cameroon. He is also the managing director of the organization Lupeppo International.
Born in the 1988 on Saint-Louis in the Senegal, Fatou Dioffé Bâ first started dabbling in poetry in college. Although she is a graduate of a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Finance, poetry is her number one passion.
Enyam Scandalocks is both an actor and a poet. He is a philosophy graduate from the University of Lomé in Togo. He is widely recognized as the forefather of Slam poetry in his home country.
Kalyre Slam is a Cameroonian slam poet who regularly performs on local and international stages. Kalyre Slam is the winner of the Chanson pour l’education or Song for Education Competition organized by the Swiss based NGO Enfants du Monde. He is also the president of the Association De la Promotion Des Arts Urbains in Mali.
Abdourahman Waberi is a prize-winning writer from Djibouti whose work has been translated into a multitude of languages. These poems come from his collection of poetry entitled Les Nomades, mes frères, vont boire à la grande ourse (The Nomads, My Brothers, Will Drink from the Big Dipper), his only collection of poetry. Muslim by birth, Waberi’s themes include the nomadic life, colonial and postcolonial hardships, exile, Jewish writers, the Arabic language, and Djibouti’s harsh climate. Most importantly, these poems, like his novels, short stories, and essays, carry the important message of tolerance. He is an Assistant Professor of Francophone Literature at the George Washington University.
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Nancy Naomi Carlson is a winner of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland Arts Council, and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County. She is the author of three poetry collections, as well as the critically acclaimed Stone Lyre: Poems of René Char. Her translations and non-translated work have appeared in such journals as Agni, The Iowa Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and Western Humanities Review, and are forthcoming in The Georgia Review. She is an associate editor for Tupelo Press.