Friday 21.09.07: African Writers' Evening

To match the abundance of the season African Writers' Evening brings you a line up of four fantastic writers with guest host, and author of The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, Nick Makoha (Uganda). He will introduce Musa Okwonga (Uganda), whose football book, A Cultured Left Foot, has caught the attention of the media; Jessica Horn (Uganda), author of Speaking in Tongues, who will be doing some collaborative work with actor/singer/writer Chris Simpson (Rwanda); and Inua Ellams, graphic designer, performer and author of 13 Fairy Negro Tales.

Author Biographies:

Musa Okwonga:

Musa Okwonga is an Oxford University graduate who has practised both law and football, with the emphasis on the latter. Since emerging on the spoken word scene, he has helped set up the ever-popular PoeJazzi, featured at several readings and has won the Poetry Idol competition at Shortfuse. A versatile writer, Musa won the Junior Bridport Prize for fiction in 1994, for poetry in 1995, and the WH Smith Young Writers competition a year later.

Jessica Horn & Christopher Simpson:

Jessica Horn is a poet and women's rights activist with roots in Uganda's Mountains of the Moon and the shadows of New York's Yankee stadium. A cultural nomad, Jessica has lived in Lesotho, the Fiji Islands and the USA, and now lives and works in London. She won the Sojourner Poetry Prize in 2001, judged by June Jordan, for her poem 'Dis UN: For Rwanda' and her debut collection of poetry, Speaking in Tongues was released in 2006 under the mouthmark series.

Christopher Simpson is a singer, actor and occasional writer. Although he is often seen playing South Asian roles on screen, he is actually of Rwandan, Greek and Irish extraction. His most recent role was in the forthcoming film adaptation of the award winning novel Brick Lane.

Inua Ellams:

An incredibly talented writer, Inua Ellams lacks long legs yet he manages, inexplicably, to straddle the divide between hip hop and Soyinka effortlessly. He rains poems and images so fly that migratory birds that visited his Nigerian home have refused to leave. Inua is the author of 13 Fairy Negro Tales and a winner of several poetry slams.

 

 

Address:
Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2

Entry: £4
Info: 020 7420 9888

Doors open: 7:30pm

BOOKS:

Musa's recent book is A Cultured Left Foot (pictured).