Tag Archives: Captivation

Nandi Nothando Mabel Khumalo

South Africa No Comments

Nandi Nothando Mabel Khumalo became a poet under the teachings of Mr Edmund Mhlongo of Ekhaya Multi Arts Company in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.

In 2008 she performed at the IIC for the former President Thabo Mbeki sharing the stage with the famous Lady Smith Black Mambazo, and also appeared on SABC1’s SHIFT, Street Journal by Night and on Izwi Labantu.

During 2010-2013 she coordinated for Durban International Film Festival.

During the FIFA world Cup 2010 South Africa Nandi was one of the program directors for the Durban North Beach Fan Park.

She owns her own company called Legends of Purpose which promotes artists in her province.

Naledi Raba

South Africa No Comments

Naledi Raba is a 21 year old poet from Nyanga, a township in Cape Town, South Africa.

She first performed in New York in 2008 and has since been performing in various places in Cape Town. Naledi won the Slam Poetry Competition at University of Cape Town in 2012 and in 2013 she won the national DFL Lover + Another Poetry Challenge in 2013.

Ngwatilo Mawiyoo

Kenya No Comments

Drawing from her musical background and her work as an actress, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo is acclaimed as “a priest of the art of performed poetry.” She has performed in venues in East Africa, Europe and North America, recently performing at the 2009 13th Stockholm Poetry Festival.

An undisputed young master of the written word, Ngwatilo’s first collection of poems Blue Mothertongue (2010) is “crafted with beautiful pace and intelligence,” “a worthy testament of her times.”

Her poems may also be found in literary journals around the world including Kwani? published by The Kwani Trust and The Literary Review published by Farleigh & Dickinson University.”

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Napo Masheane

South Africa No Comments

Embodying the energy of a young, urban South African generation, acclaimed proponent of spoken-word poetry, Napo Masheane is a fresh and innovative voice in this genre. Born in Soweto and raised in Qwaqwa, Masheane who holds a Marketing Management and Speech and Drama Diploma, is a writer, director, producer, poet and an acclaimed performer on both international and national stages.

She is a founding member of Feela Sista! Spoken Word Collective. She is also the co-director of Colour of the Diaspora, an international collective of black women from the United States and South Africa. Masheane was a nominee of the 2005 Daimler Chrysler South African Poetry Award and has studied at or worked in: the Market Theatre, the Windybrow Theatre, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, the University of Johannesburg, the Civic Theatre (Actors Centre), the SABC, Fuba School of Dramatic Arts, the University of California, Jungel Theater (Germany), Soweto Youth Drama Society, Farnebo College (Sweden), and The Lion King (New York City).

She has performed at Maitisong Theatre in Botswana and the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). Masheane is currently the Managing Director of her own production company Village Gossip Productions through which she self-published her poetry and essay anthology Caves Speak In Metaphors. Her provocative and humorous one woman show My Bum Is Genetic Deal with It was received to wide acclaim.

She has performed and shared stage with, amongst others, Don Mattera, Lebo Mashile, Kgafela Magogodi, Jessica Care Moore, Toni Blackman and Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Nana Yaw Sarpong

Ghana No Comments

Nana Yaw Sarpong is a poet, writer, radio presenter and producer of Writers Project on Citi, a weekly literary radio programme for Ghanaian writers. He currently works with the Writers Project of Ghana. Nana Yaw lives in Ghana where he teaches English and Linguistics.

Nana Korantema Hanson

Ghana No Comments

Nana Korantema Hanson is an actress, a writer (poetry, anecdotal essays, and novel), blogger, television presenter, and an entertainment journalist based in Ghana.

Nama Xam

South Africa No Comments

Pseudonyms: Nama Xam ( Xam – pronounced Gam / Jy7even (Pronounced – Jey sev-uhn) / Syllabic / isja! /
! Ga re’ (Listen)

With charged lyrics reflecting and animating the experiences of a young Khoe Khoen and Bushman (1st indigenous people of sub Saharan Africa) trying to survive within a marginalising system, this is the Poetry and music of Nama Xam.

Nama Xam has always been into music one way or the other. Since a young age he has been receiving instruction in classical piano, later moving to Jazz and at this time being influenced by the urban music revolution happening within the ghettos of the Cape Flats. He recalls,” I was introduced to Hip Hop through the dubbed cassettes my brother had featuring artists such as Public Enemy, X clan, LL Cool J, NWA. I was hooked! I started to frequent spaces where Hip Hop was. The benefit of growing up in Mitchell’s plain (an apartheid Group Areas Act scheme) was that Hip Hop was everywhere”. He then became a member of the Universal Zulu Nation and started with break dancing not knowing that he’d return to it later in his life being a student of Capoeira. Capoeira is the mother of break dancing.

Over the years Nama Xam has been producing and performing with many artists such as Jean Pierre (!Khu-aob), Streetmatterphysics (School Of Thought), Blaq Pearl, Brandon Florus (Flo4Soul), Ej Von Lyrik (Godessa), Dj Azhul (BVK), Brendan Adams ( Adam Speaks), Linkris, SiepSokkie, Chase Lutron and Perspektif and many more. Also doing community edutaiment drives through park jams on the Cape Flats such as Mitchells Plain, Kuilsriver, Belhar, Lavender hill and Eerste River. Nama Xam is the founding member of the group Jy!7 (pronounced – Jey sev-uhn) and along with partner Flo4Soul bring “soulfully social” music to the people. As a poet Nama Xam has been a regular at the Verses poetry session and the group jy!7.ven has featured as well.
Through record company African Dope records he was given the chance to remix a track of Cape Town based group Moodphase 5. The track is called Violation. It featured on the 2005 release called African Dope which won a SAMA (South African Music Award) for that year.

Performances that Nama Xam has been involved in:

2004:

National Arts and Culture Awards, UWC Poetry Festival

2005:
Red Cross Society annual Christmas outreach show
Live performances for Gam Sushi @ Obs Café

2007:
The Wonders of Being Out There (WoBoT) @ Zula Soundbar
Halman Walk Youth Development annual Christmas outreach in Hanover Park
Neutral Ground @ Katalist
CVET gig @ Athlone technical college
Friends of Cuba fundraiser @ Salt River community centre
Verses @ Zula Soundbar
Youth day Gig @ Alliance Frances

2008:
Launch of the Western Cape Music Association’s Benevolent fund
All Elements Hip Hop gig @ North Pine Community Hall

2010:
Nekkies Hip Hop Festival

2011:
Infecting the City festival
Verses

2012: 

Best of Ekapa Hip Hop underground

At present Nama Xam is busy with recording his solo album titled – The Chastising of Xam.

Naima Mclean

South Africa No Comments

Naima is an enormously talented writer, poet and vocalist born in New York City and raised in numerous cities across South Africa.

She has earned a degree in theatre and performing arts from the University of Capetown, performed, acted and sang in South Africa and Europe.

Naima performs as a poet in her personal capacity as well as with the collective Rite 2 Speak, a group of young South African theatre practitioners, who felt that the voices of their generation were not represented in theatre. The collective fuses the performance of poetry, music and theatrical aspects as a vehicle to encourage physical engagement with the audience.

Naima’s current TV roles include cameo features on one of South Africa’s most watched TV dramas Generations, presenting for South African Coca Cola game shows as well as a feature character in the internationally renowned UK TV series Wild AT Heart.

Kyle Louw

South Africa No Comments

Kyle’s poetry is by no means conventional; it does not follow grammar rules or structure. It definitely won’t go down in history as some of the best-written work. Kyle does not care about that! He cares about changing people’s perspective on topics of the mind and spirit, topics like society norms, love, and social media. He cares about sharing that feeling you get when you hear something that resonates with you, when the goosebumps shoot up your arms and that inspirational shiver slides down your spine. He wants people to be able to relate on a human level and say, “I understand where he is coming from because I feel the same emotions he does on a daily basis.”

Kolade Arogundade

Nigeria No Comments

Kolade Arogundade is a land economist, poet, world music aficionado, writer, political animal and football fiend. Recently he has started an initiative called Giants in the Land which has so far published two books of poetry. He is currently working on his first novel.

Kobus Moolman

South Africa No Comments

Kobus Moolman was born in 1964 in Pietermaritzburg. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing in the Department of English at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. He holds a PhD in English Studies from UKZN.
In 2013 he received the 2013 Sol Plaatje European Union poetry award. In the same year, he was the Mellon Writer in Residence at Rhodes University for three months, and he also published his most recent poetry anthology, Left Over (Dye Hard Press). The collection has been widely acknowledged as his strongest to date.

In 2012 he was commissioned by the Performing Arts Centre of the Free State to adapt  Zakes Mda’s the novel, The Madonna of Excelsior, for the stage. The production has travelled to several theatres in the country, including the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and the State Theatre in Pretoria.

In 2010 he published Light and After (Deep South Press). The collection was launched at the 14th Poetry Africa festival in Durban. In the same year he received the South African Literary Award for Poetry for his collection, Separating the Seas. Founded by the national Ministry of Arts & Culture, the South African Literary Awards honour South African literary practitioners, while encouraging the advancement of literary heritage and practice.

In 2010 he was a special guest, for two months, of the Creative Writing Research Group of the University of Calgary in Canada. During this period he gave readings of his work and lectured, including at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He was also an invited guest at the 2010 Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, during which time he performed at the Banff Centre for the Arts and in Canmore. In the same year he edited and published, Tilling the Hard Soil: poetry, prose and art by   South African Writers with Disabilities (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press). He was also the invited dramaturge on a two-week residency for South African and Dutch scriptwriters organized by the Twist Theatre Development Project during the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. He was invited back as dramaturge in 2011 and 2013.

In 2009 one of poems was nominated for a US Pushcart Prize. At the beginning of 2008, he participated in a three-week collaborative residency at the Caversham Centre for Writers and Artists in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. During this residency he produced a limited edition, hand-bound collection of poems entitled Anatomy. This cycle of poems was later published in the Journal of Disability Studies (OhioStateUniversity). It also won the Dramatic and Literary Rights (DALRO) Prize for the best poem to appear in New Coin magazine in 2008.

A collection of his radio plays, Blind Voices, was published by Botsotso Publishers in 2007. The collection is sponsored by the British Council and features a CD of the BBC production of his earlier award-winning play, Soldier Boy.

In 2008,  he was on the panel of adjudicators for the Ingrid Jonker award, and in 2009 he was a judge for the Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry.He was the founding editor of the annual KwaZulu-Natal poetry journal, Fidelities, which ran from 1995 until 2007.  As co-ordinator of the Fidelities Poetry Project he conducted creative writing workshops and readings for a variety of interest groups, from offenders in prison to high school youth.  From 2000 to 2009 he edited the poetry titles for the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, working on collections by Karen Press, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Kelwyn Sole and Makhosazana Xaba, amongst others.

In 2007 he was also named joint winner of the 2007 NLDTF/PANSA Festival of Contemporary Theatre Readings of New Writing for his new play, Stone Angel. This is the second time he has won this major South African award for theatre writing. In the same year he was the chairperson of the selection committee for the Olive Schreiner Poetry Prize sponsored by the English Academy of Southern Africa.

In 2004 his play, Full Circle, was awarded the Jury Prize for Best Script in the Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA) Festival of Reading of New Writing. The play premiered at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2005, directed by Charmaine Weir-Smith, and was critically acclaimed. It was subsequently produced at the Hilton College Theatre in Pietermaritzburg and at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. The play was also produced as part of the Southern African theatre season at the Oval House Theatre in London in 2006. The script was published in 2007 by Dye Hard Press.  And in 2008 it was produced by the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

In 2004 he was commissioned by Bush Radio (Cape Town) to adapt Gomolemo Mokae’s short story, Milk and Honey Galore, for the radio.

In 2003 he was a runner-up in the BBC African Performance radio drama competition. His winning play was produced for the BBC World Service. In the same year it was also read at the Moscow Theatre Festival of New Writing. His collection, Feet of the Sky was published by Brevitas Press.
In 2001 he was one of five South African poets featured in a collection by Botsotso Publishers, entitled simply, 5 Poetry.

In 1998 he was awarded the Helen Martins Fellowship which enabled him to spend a month in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda working on an anthology of poetry.  This collection, entitled, Time like Stone was published by UKZN Press in 2000. The collection was awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize for 2001, the premier South African award for a debut anthology.

In 1992 he was a finalist in the Amstel Playwright of the Year Award. He is the recipient of the BBC African Radio Theatre Award (1987), the Macmillan Southern African Playwriting Award (1991) and in 2000 he won a merit award in the Noupoort Reward for Playwriting.

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Kayo Chingonyi

United Kingdom No Comments

Kayo Chingonyi has performed his poetry in countless live venues across the UK. His work has been broadcast on Radio Five Live and Sheffield Live and is anthologized in The Shuffle Anthology 2009 and City Lighthouse (tall-lighthouse, 2009) as well as appearing in print and online magazines including Pomegranate, Tate Etc and Wasafiri.

He has completed commissions for organisations such as Louis Vuitton and The Poetry Society and was a contributor to Asking a Shadow to Dance a DVD anthology, produced by Oxfam, launched in December 2009.

Kwame Dawes

Ghana No Comments

Ghanaian-born Jamaican poet, Kwame Dawes is the award-winning author of sixteen books of poetry (most recently, Wheels, 2011) and numerous books of fiction, non-fiction, criticism and drama. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, and a Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska.   Kwame Dawes also teaches in the Pacific MFA Writing program.

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Kneo Mokgopa

South Africa No Comments

Kneo was born and raised in Johannesburg, with a mother who built a home for him and his siblings out of nothing. His mother raised him with considerable effort and some comfort but he had to find his own feet, and as such he is studying law at the University of Cape Town. His poetry emerged from his love of love, philosophy and history, as well as his experience of being a part of the liminal class of the ‘born frees’.

Kennet B

Kenya No Comments

Odongo Kennedy Leakey, known in the entertainment industry as Kennet B, started writing spoken word poetry 14 years ago. He began performing actively in early 2009 after winning the Slam Africa Poetry Championship founded by Imani Womera of Imani Inc. Prior to this, he had recorded his first spoken word poetry single Reality Absurdity, the video for which is forthcoming. Driven by the global concern about HIV and AIDS, his lyrics are majorly pegged on the social issues that are responsible for the spread of the virus.

He has four albums on the table; Coming of Age, a seven track pure spoken word poetry album , Success a 15 track musical-poetry album, Cheka na Kennet, and Refugee.

Currently Kennet is working on a short stories compilation The Sheng Anthology vol 1. This is a collection of conflict-laden social narratives aimed at impacting the repeated emphatic distress felt when a favorite character is seen in imminent danger. This often enhances the enjoyment of the stories and one sees the resolution of the threat (HIV&AIDS) as the narratives unfold.

Kate Ellis-Cole

South Africa No Comments

Kate Ellis-Cole is an enigma. Always perfectly styled, she carries herself with a secret confidence that’s almost regal. Grace and eloquence spill from her lips in conversation and it’s difficult not to form certain preconceived expectations when this soft-spoken lady steps on stage: she’s white, she’s a woman and she clearly sounds privileged. And then she opens her mouth. Kate’s poetry and subject matter is far from what the initial impression would lead one to expect. From political satire to the strong cross-cultural ties she experiences with land and country, her poetry reflects magnitudes of conscientious and sensitive living and there’s something about her and the unapologetic sincerity with which she speaks and performs that’s endearing and mesmerising.

Karin Schimke

South Africa No Comments

Karin Schimke is a widely published journalist and columnist, and the Cape Times books editor. She also works as a writing tutor and mentor, an author of non-fiction – including the best-selling Fabulously Forty and Beyond, co-written with Margie Orford – of children’s books and of short stories. She edited Open, an anthology of erotic short stories written by some of South Africa’s best known women writers. Her poetry has appeared in South Africa Writing, New Contrast, New Coin and Carapace magazines. Bare & Breaking her first collection of poems won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 2014.

Lwanda

South Africa No Comments

 

Lwanda Sindaphi is an actor, playwright, theatre director and Xhosa poet. He is a graduate of New Africa Theatre Academy and Magnet Theatre. In 2011, he won the Cape Town Drama for Life Lover + Another Poetry Slam and competed in the national finals in Johannesburg. In 2013, he won the most promising director award at the Zabalazaa Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre Centre and is a co-founder of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.

Legodile “Dredd X” Seganabeng

Botswana No Comments

Legodile Seganabeng hails from the village of Tonota, Botswana. Seganabeng is a recorded poet, spoken word performer, published writer, guitarist and fine artist.

His interest in writing began during his high school days. He holds a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He also holds a Diploma in Creative Writing. He is currently a senior secondary school teacher of Art & Design with specialties in printmaking, photography and graphics. As a freelance writer, he has published several articles in local and international newspapers and magazines.

Seganabeng is founder and chairperson of the Maun based Poetavango Spoken Word Poetry movement. With his Poetavango team, he has brought to the country an annual poetry and literature gala dubbed the Maun International Poetry Festival. In 2010, he won the Bessie Head Literature Award in the short story category. The book, The Moon has Eyes and Other Stories was published in 2011 by Pentagon Publishers, Botswana. On performance stages, Seganabeng is known exclusively as Dredd X. His poetry album, Poetic Mediations, is due for release soon.

Other than performances in local festivals, Seganabeng performed at the Jozi Spoken Word Fest in 2008, Johannesburg. Before then, he regularly performed with the Timbila collective in Johannesburg between 2002 and 2004. Alongside a renowned South African poet Zwesh Fi Kush, Dredd X has performed at the Oppikoppi Festival in Pretoria 2003. He also curtain raised for the Jamaican poet Mutabaruka and was part of a symposium facilitated by Linton Kwesi Johnson (UK) and Jessica Care Moore (USA) in Newtown, South Africa, in 2005.

In early 2012, his poem Effects of Goodbye was featured, alongside poems by 13 other Batswana poets, in a prestigious literary journal, Prairie Schooner, a publication out of the University of Nebraska.

Laud de Poet

Ghana No Comments

Laud de Poet is a contemporary poet from Ghana who resides in Tema. His real name is Laud Kweku Halm-Quartey affectionately addressed as Laud de Poet or Ldp. A Pan-African, Ldp is a poet and a poetry promoter.

He is also the founder of modeconceptz, an association that supports anything about poetry and the elements of poetry.

Linda Kaoma

South Africa No Comments

Linda Kaoma is a writer, poet and a B.Com graduate from the University of Cape Town. She has been with the Art Africa Centre for four years and project manager for Badilisha Poetry X-change for three years.

In 2013 she performed in Amsterdam at the Afro Vibes Festival alongside Dutch poet Babs Gons in a poetic production entitled “Becoming Another, Becoming you”.

She is also the founder and editor of Unbranded Truth Online Magazine (www.unbrandedtruth.com), an online magazine that serves as a catalyst for self-acceptance and self-evolution.

She has contributed to various publications and continues to freelance.

Lemn Sissay

Ethiopia United Kingdom No Comments

LEMN SISSAY MBE is associate artist at Southbank Centre, patron of The Letterbox Club and The Reader Organisation, ambassador for The Children’s Reading Fund, trustee of Forward Arts Foundation and inaugural trustee of World Book Night and an honorary doctor of Letters. He has been a writer from birth and foremost he is a poet. 

Lemn is author of a series of books of poetry alongside articles, records, broadcasts, public art, commissions and plays. Sissay was the first poet commissioned to write for London Olympics. His Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London. They can be seen in The Royal Festival Hall and The Olympic Park. His Landmark Poem,Guilt of Cain, was unveiled by Bishop Desmond Tutu in Fen Court near Fenchurch St Station.

Sissay’s installation poem what if was exhibited at The Royal Academy alongside Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley. It came from his Disko Bay Expedition  to the Arctic alongside  Jarvis Cocker, Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Leslie Feist and  KT Tunstall.  His  21st century poem was released on multi-million award winning album Leftism by Leftfield.  A violin concerto performed at The BBC by Viktoria Mullova was inspired by  Lemn Sissay’s poem Advice For The Living.

Sissay’s award winning play Something Dark directed by National Theatre of Wales artistic director John McGrath has been performed throughout the world  and his stage adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah’s Novel Refugee Boy at West Yorkshire Playhouse tours Britain in 2014.  A BBC  TV documentary, Internal Flight , and a radio documentary, Child of the State,  were both broadcast about his life and his Ted Talk has close to a million views. His documentary on the late  Gil Scott Heron was the first pubic announcement of Scott-Heron’s comeback album.

Sissay describes dawn in one tweet every day. His Morning Tweets. One Morning Tweet  became an award winning building MVMNT Café commissioned by Cathedral group designed and built by Supergroup’s  Morag Myerscough. It is the only building in the world built below a tweet. Cathedral also  commissioned a Landmark Poem,  Shipping Good,  which will be laid into the streets of Greenwich.

He was the first  Black Writers Development Worker in the North of England.  He created and established Cultureword (part of Commonword) where Sissay developed supported and published many new writers who’ve gone on to a life of creativity.  Sissay received an MBE from The Queen  for services to literature and an honorary doctorate from University of Huddersfield who run The Sissay Scholarship for care leavers: It is the first of its kind in the UK.

The Guardian newspaper heralded the arrival of his first book Tender Fingers In A Clenched Fist. “Lemn Sissay has Success written all over his forehead”. He was 21. Between the ages of 18 and 32 he  tracked his family down across the world.  His career as a writer happened in spite of his incredible life story not because of it.

He has made various BBC radio documentaries on or with writers such as Gil Scott Heron, The last Poets, JB Priestley, Edgar Allan Poe and poetry films broadcast to the nation.  His head is in London where he’s based, his heart is in  Manchester where he is not, his soul is in Addis  and his vibe is in New York where his mother lives.  He blogs openly for personal reasons. Google Lemn Sissay and all the hits would be about him. There is only one Lemn Sissay in the world.

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Onokemi Onojobi

Nigeria No Comments

Onokemi Onojobi (a.k.a Qono) is an artistic, avant-garde persona, a perspicacious lover of words, writing and all things aesthetic. A performance poet and a musician. Onokemi is also an advocate against Child Sexual Abuse amongst other things.

Omnyama

South Africa No Comments

Omnyama (the black one), birth name Asanda Vokwana was born and buttered in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  Her provocative voice has graced numerous stages in South African. Traces of her Past her debut album – working alongside Bongani Tulwana – is a recollection of the realities of being young, black and female.

Olumide Popoola

Nigeria No Comments

Olumide Popoola is a London-based Nigerian German author, poet, performer and speaker who presents internationally, often collaborating with musicians or other artists. She has published fiction, drama, poetry and essays in magazines, journals, newspapers, memoirs and anthologies since 1988.

The scope of her work concerns critical investigation into the ‘in-between’ of culture, language and public space where a, sometimes uncomfortable, look at complexity is needed.

Olumide holds a BSc in Ayurvedic Medicine and a MA in Creative Writing. She is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of East London for which she is working on a novel that expands on her interest in cross-genre work, and the notion of vernacular or hybrid languages as literary opportunities for social and cultural change.

In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry in 2004 (the first Black International Literature Award in Germany).

She has received grants, fellowships and residencies from UEL, Djerassi, Künstlerdorf Schöppingen and Hedgebrook, amongst others.

Her novella this is not about sadness is her first book-length work of fiction, published by Unrast Verlag in 2010 through their ‘insurrection notes’ imprint. Her play Also by Mail was published in February 2013 by Witnessed (edition assemblage).

She aims to finish the novel that is her PhD project in 2014/15.

Odia Ofeimun

Nigeria No Comments

Odia Ofeimun, poet, polemicist and polymath was born in Iruekpen-Ekuma, Edo State, Nigeria, on March 16th 1950. The author of ten significant volumes of poetry, Mr. Ofeimun has also published two books of political essays, four books on cultural politics as well as editing two anthologies of Nigerian poetry.

Widely anthologized and translated into many world languages, Mr. Ofeimun has read and performed his poetry in several countries of the world including Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia, India, South Korea, Columbia, Germany, Israel, Great Britain, China, the United States of America, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Sweden, Italy and Cuba.

At home in Nigeria, Mr. Ofeimun’s practice of journalism, spanning the years of military tyranny, has inspired a whole generation of journalists in print and electronic media. The principled stand of Mr. Ofeimun came at the price of random invasion of his residence, seizure of his manuscripts, computer discs and Nigerian Passport to deny him freedom of movement. Undeterred, and while practicing probably the most dangerous vocation of all at the time, Mr. Ofeimun served the Association of Nigerian Authors as General Secretary and President respectively. He has been designated advisor to PEN Nigeria Centre and is a founding member of the Pan African Writers Association.

Mr. Ofeimun is the recipient of many awards the latest of which is the prestigious Fonlon-Nichols Award for literary excellence and propagation of Human Rights which was conferred on him by the African Literature Association in 2010. In a literary career spanning four decades, Mr. Ofeimun has distinguished himself with poetry and essays which challenge both the imagination and the intellect, crossing cultural borders and establishing new benchmarks in the articulation of the African narrative. His essays are valued both for knowledge and analysis, for what to know and for how to think about what is known.

Though only 62, Mr. Ofeimun is fondly called ‘Baba’ by the post-civil war generation of Nigerian writers many of whom have found touchstones in his works or have been individually mentored in writing by Mr. Ofeimun. For his copious literary output while engaged with anti-military rule struggle in Nigeria, Mr. Ofeimun has been called an exemplar of conscionable and consistent writing and the writerly life.

Jitsvinger

South Africa No Comments

Jitsvinger (Quintin Goliath) is an Afrikaaps vernacular and Kyknet Fiestas award winning performer.

He released his debut album Skeletsleutel in 2006. Jitsvinger has collaborated on various projects such as the inter-continental exchange, Rogue State Alliance and Each One Teach One. His versatility has taken him to Holland, Switzerland and Taiwan, where he has performed at international festivals such as the Migration Music Festival, Rock the Docks, Funk Em See, the Buskers Festival, and AfroVibes Festival.

Locally Jitsvinger has performed at acclaimed poetry festivals including Speak the Mind, Poetry Africa, the Cape Town Book Fair, and Spier Poetry Festival. Musically he has performed at Oppiekoppie, Obs Fest, and Cape Town Festival, to name a few.

Jitsvinger composed the music and lyrics for the popular theatre comedy production Joe Barber 5 and is also part of the cast of the critically acclaimed Afrikaaps.

 

Jethro Louw

South Africa No Comments

Jethro is a poet from Cape Town, born in Beaufort West in the Eastern Cape. He lives in a township. He is a ghetto poet, largely considered to be the godfather of spoken word in Cape Town. And alongside poets such as Lesego Rampolokeng, Mzwakhe Mbuli and Mzwandile Matiwana, he ranks as one of the nation’s key voices, a noteable “word-bomber”. Jethro uses the power of his words to bring back to life the discontinued heritage of his culture. His work revitalises the legacy of stories and the wealth of storytellers of the KhoiSan people. For centuries, the members of this community have been silenced by the gun and the bullet and the wall. The results are a lack of formal skills and access to infrastructure to turn those skills into income, subsequently a lack of identity and self esteem.

Jethro Louw’s compositions and performances feature on Volume One of the Coffeebeans Routes’ Bootleg Series, by the Khoi Khollektif, in collaboration with several Cape Town acts. The tracks are all live recordings from shows in Cape Town between 2004 and 2007. Jethro also features on the Goemarati compilation, with his track In a Third World, a collaboration with Black Rose.

James Matthews

South Africa No Comments

James Matthews, poet, writer and publisher, has produced five books of poetry, a collection of short stories, a novel and an anthology of poetry, which he edited. Most of his work was banned under the previous government and was translated and published overseas. For 13 years he was denied a passport and was placed in detention from September to December 1976. Solitary confinement was widely used during the apartheid years; its purpose being to disorient, to dehumanize, to undermine the detainee’s sense of self-identity. James Matthews waged a struggle against this agenda with the one weapon the jailers couldn’t take away from him – his ability to turn words into poems.

In 1980 Matthews participated in the Frankfurt Book Fair, and in 1982 he participated in the Cultural and Resistance Conference in Gaborone. He was awarded a Fellowship at Iowa University, U.S.A. and was the founding member of the Vakalisa Art Association and founding member and Patron of the Congress of South African Writers. James Matthews is the first black person to have established an art gallery (Gallery Afrique) in South Africa, and is the first black to have established a publishing house (BLAC Publishing House 1974 -1991) The publishing house closed in 1991 due to constant harassment by the previous government. Matthews is the recipient of the Woza Afrika Award (1978), Kwaza Honours List – Black Arts Celebration, Chicago, U.S.A.(1979) and the Freeman of Lehrte and Nienburg, Germany (1982). In 2010, he was given an award by the City of Cape Town.

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Jon Goode

United States No Comments

Jon Goode is an Emmy nominated writer raised in from Richmond, VA and currently residing in Atlanta, GA. Jon’s work has been featured in CNN’s Black in America, HBO’s Def Poetry, BET’s Lyric Café and TVOne’s Verses and Flow. Jon has also written radio commercials for McDonalds, print ads for Nike, and appeared in commercials, vignettes and interstitials for Chick-Fil-A and TVLand/ Nick @ Nite. In 2006 Jon’s work with Nick @ Nite earned him an Emmy nomination alongside the 2006 Promax Gold award for best copyright North America.

Jessica Mbangeni

South Africa No Comments

Born and raised in the Eastern Cape, Jessica Mbangeni is one of South Africa’s most sought after female Imbongi (praise singer), and has made her mark in male dominated cultural terrain. Invoking the role of this ancient tradition, largely influenced by her grandmother’s isiXhosa storytelling in the village of Nqamakwe, she offers insightful commentary on contemporary affairs. She has performed alongside numerous musical icons, such as Dolly Rathebe and Dorothy Masuka.