Language and Memory: Poetics of the Personal

Speaker biographies

• Victoria Adukwei Bulley

  Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian poet and writer. She is a former member of the Barbican Young Poets. Her work has been commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts, in addition to being featured in The Rialto, and on BBC Radio 4. She was shortlisted for the Brunel University International African Poetry Prize 2016, and is one of ten poets on the acclaimed UK mentorship programme, The Complete Works. Her debut pamphlet, Girl B, edited by Kwame Dawes, is forthcoming as part of the 2017 New-Generation African Poets series.

• Joan Anim-Addo

  Joan Anim-Addo is Professor of Caribbean Literature and Culture and Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the Programme Convenor for the Literature of the Caribbean and its Diasporas pathway within the MA Comparative Literary Studies programme, and is the Founder-Editor of New Mango Season, the Journal of Caribbean Women’s Writing. Her recent publications include the libretto, Imoinda, or She Who Will Lose Her Name (2003/2008), the poetry collections Haunted by History (2004) and Janie Cricketing Lady (2006) and the literary history Touching the Body: History, Language and African-Caribbean Women’s Writing (2007). She is co-editor of I Am Black, White, Yellow: An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe and Interculturality and Gender (2009). Most recently, she co-edited Affects and Creolisation, a special issue of ole Review (2013). She is the principal investigator of the AHRC-funded research network, Behind the Looking-glass: ‘Other’-cultures-within’ translating cultures.
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• Bridget Minamore

  Bridget Minamore is a writer from and based in south-east London. She has worked with the National Theatre's New Writers' programme, performed at the Roundhouse and the Southbank Centre and has had poems exhibited at a TEDxLondon conference. She has an English degree from UCL and teaches drama and poetry workshops for young people around the country. Bridget is part of the creative team behind Brainchild Festival and in 2013 was shortlisted to be London's first Young Poet Laureate. Her debut pamphlet, Titanic, came out in May this year on Out-Spoken Press.

• Selina Nwulu

  Selina Nwulu is a writer, poet and performer. Her work is an exploration of both the personal and political which she weaves with themes of identity, daily observation, nostalgia and belonging. Her first chapbook collection, The Secrets I Let Slip was published by Burning Eye Books in September 2015 and is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) recommendation. As well as writing for a number of online outlets such as the Guardian and Red Pepper, her poetry has also been published by Emma Press, Lunar Poetry, Free Word and the RSA. She is former Young Poet Laureate for London 2015-6, a prestigious award that recognizes talent and potential in the capital. So far during her tenure she has read at Cúirt Literature Festival, Galway,and StAnza poetry festival, St Andrews, in which she was labelled as ‘an emerging writer to watch’. She has also read at both the House of Commons and the Lords. She has previously toured nationally with Apples and Snakes, representing London as part of the ‘Public Address II tour’ as well as performing internationally at the EU Environmental Human Rights Conference in Budapest. She has just returned from a literary tour in India with the British Council.

• Belinda Zhawi

  Belinda Zhawi is a Zimbabwean-born writer and educator who lives and works in London. Her work mostly focuses on memories of living in rural and urban Zimbabwe. She has performed across the UK in numerous venues, festivals and events including at Africa Writes, Bestival and TATE, with her work published in the anthologies Liminal Animals and Casagrande: Rain Of Poems. In 2013, Zhawi featured on Channel 4’s Random Acts and also co-founded the monthly poetry night, BORN::FREE. Zhawi was shortlisted for 2015-16 Young Poet Laureate’s London role.