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.