Last year, the UK’s three largest literary festivals featured over 2000 authors.
Of those 2000+ authors, only 4% were from Black Caribbean, Black African, South Asian or East Asian backgrounds.
We’re aiming to change that.
February 2016 sees the debut of Bare Lit: a literary festival focused entirely on writers of colour.
Unlike
other literary festivals which often confine non-white authors to
one-off 'diversity' panels, Bare Lit Festival gives authors of colour the
platform and visibility they deserve.
We
want to counteract the trend of equating literary merit with whiteness
by highlighting the amazing variety of work currently being produced by
BAME writers. That’s why we’ve put together an exciting programme of
performances, panels and conversations -- such as ‘Second-Generation
Poets in Exile’, ‘What Does Liberation in Literature Look Like?', (Re)writing Pasts and Futures' and
much more. Find further information about the program on our events page here.
This we hope will be the first year of many.
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But to make this happen, we need your help.
To cover the costs of paying guests, booking venues, promotion and festival administration, we need to raise £7000.
This
will help us to provide a high-quality festival experience for
attendees and affirm the importance of valuing writers of colour, both
in the UK literary scene and as a whole.
In the perks section you'll see we're offering the "Complict No More" e-book:
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“Complicit No More” is a collection of essays curated by Yasmin
Gunaratnam. It tackles the crosscutting facets of complicity as they
play out within our relationships to our bodies, each other, our
communities, to media representations and to mobilisation.
Limited edition Media Diversified tote bags:
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...and festival tickets. As well as giving your support, we hope you can join us for what promises to be a groundbreaking cultural event!
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On Friday 26th February join us for our opening night launch party at the award winning Betsey Trotwood pub which will include live music from Peter Brathwaite, a poetry performance by Khairani Barokka and a DJ set by AKA Mama Junk. (Further Info)
On Saturday we have a full day of events at both the Betsey Trotwood and the Free Word Centre in Farringdon, London and on Sunday a full day of events at the Betsey Trotwood. We will be hosting a terrific line up of writers across a variety of genres -- including fiction, poetry, politics and sci-fi/fantasy -- with celebrated writers such as Leila Aboulela, Jane Yeh, Selina Nwulu, Zen Cho and more.
Tickets will also be available from the Free Word Centre.
Find us on twitter @BareLit
Website: www.barelitfestival.com
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In 2015, we hosted a Literatures of Colour panel at the Stoke Newington
Festival chaired by Chimene Suleyman and with panelists Sunny
Singh, Courttia Newland, Kavita Bhanot (editor of ‘Too Asian, Not Asian
Enough’), and Bidisha, discussing the experiences of writers of colour.
Bare Lit Festival is organised by the team behind Media Diversified, a young and growing non-profit
organisation which seeks to cultivate and promote skilled writers of
colour. Live since July 2013, the initiative is
already diversifying the UK’s media landscape, providing important,
challenging and new content which contributes to global as well as
domestic discussion on issues of social justice, equality, gender, politics, economics and pop culture. In March 2015 Media Diversified launched its Experts Directory, a searchable resource for media organisations of all sizes to subscribe to.
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OUR GUESTS
Below are some of the authors featured in the international line-up for Bare Lit Festival 2016.
We'll be adding more info in campaign updates as the festival approaches.
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Xiaolu Guo is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and film maker. She was born in
south-eastern China in 1973 and studied Film at Beijiing Film Academy and the
UK National Film & TV School.
Her novel in
English translation, Village of Stone
(2004), was shortlisted for the 2005 Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
It was followed by her first novel written in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007), which
tells the story of Z, a Chinese student‘s encounters in London and her inner
journey of self-discovery. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for
Fiction.
In April 2013,
she was named one of the 'Best of Young British Novelists' by Granta Magazine.
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Khairani Barokka
is an Indonesian writer, poet, artist, and disability and arts
(self-)advocate in London. Among her honors, she was an NYU Tisch Departmental
Fellow for her Masters, Emerging Writers Festival’s (AUS) Inaugural
International Writer-In-Residence, and Indonesia’s first Writer-In-Residence at
Vermont Studio Center. Okka is the writer/performer/producer of, among others,
a deaf-accessible, solo spoken word/art show, “Eve and Mary Are Having
Coffee”. It premiered at Edinburgh Fringe 2014 as Indonesia’s only
representative, with a grant from HIVOS. She was recognized in 2014 by UNFPA as
one of Indonesia’s “Inspirational Young Leaders Driving Social Change” for
“raising awareness of disability through inclusive arts”, and has been awarded
six residencies, with a seventh upcoming. Published internationally in
anthologies and journals, Okka has presented work extensively, in nine countries,
is co-editor of forthcoming "HEAT", an anthology of Southeast Asian
urban writing (Buku Fixi Publishing, 2016), the author of forthcoming
poetry-art book "Indigenous Species" (Tilted Axis Press, 2016),
and a PhD-by-practice candidate at Goldsmiths, as an LPDP Scholar.
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Dean Atta is a poet and educator, with a BA
Philosophy and English from the University of Sussex and an MA
Writer/Teacher from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a
member of Keats House Poets Forum and Malika’s Poetry Kitchen.
He is also an Associate Artists with Mouthy Poets and New Writing South. He has been
commissioned to write poems for Keats House Museum, National Portrait Gallery,
Tate Britain and Tate Modern. His debut poetry collection
I Am Nobody's Nigger was published in 2013
by The Westbourne Press. He lives in London and works internationally.
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Malika Booker is a writer, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist. She
has appeared world-wide both independently and with the British
Council. She was one of the touring poets with Bittersweet in 1999/2000
and since has featured in the spoken word project, Modern Love, and in
Kin at the Barbican in 2004 . Her book,
Breadfruit, was published in 2007.
She was commissioned to co-produce a poetry film to commemorate the
Royal Festival Hall's 50th Birthday Celebrations in Spring 2001. Her
first musical play,
Catwalk, commissioned by NITRO, ran at the Tricycle Theatre in June 2001 and had a successful UK tour.
Malika Booker also jointly runs 'Malika's Kitchen', a writers' collective based in London and Chicago. Her latest play,
Unplanned, opened in Spring 2007, with a run at Battersea Arts Centre. Her book,
Breadfruit, was also published in 2007. Her latest poetry collection is
Pepper Seed, published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013.
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Zen Cho was born and raised in Malaysia. She is the author of Crawford Award-winning short story collection
Spirits Abroad, and editor of anthology
Cyberpunk: Malaysia,
both published by Buku Fixi. She has also been nominated for the
Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Pushcart Prize, and
honour-listed for the Carl Brandon Society Awards, for her short
fiction. Her debut novel,
Sorcerer to the Crown, is the first
in a historical fantasy trilogy published by Ace/Roc Books (US) and Pan
Macmillan (UK). She lives in London with her partner and practises law
in her copious free time.
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Sunny Singh, was born in Varanasi,
India, and brought up in various Indian cantonment towns, Islamabad, Pakistan
and New York City, USA. She studied at Brandeis University (USA), Jawaharlal
Nehru University (India), and University of Barcelona (Spain).
Her debut novel, Nani’s Book Of
Suicides, published in 2000, was described as a “first novel of rare scope
and power.” The Spanish translation of the novel won the inaugural Mar de
Letras prize in 2003. Her second book, a work of non-fiction titled Single In The City: The
Independent Woman’s Handbook (2001), was a first-of-its-kind exploration of
single women in contemporary India and described as “witty and insightful.” Her
second novel, With
Krishna’s Eyes (2006), has been commended for its “profound insight” and
described as “memorable”. Her latest novel, Hotel Arcadia, is published
by Quartet Books and available from bookshops and e-retailers across UK. Her
short stories have been published by prestigious international literary
journals including The Drawbridge and World Literature Today.
Her creative nonfiction and academic writing has been
published across the world in key journals and anthologies. She also writes for
newspapers and magazines, in Spanish and English, across the globe.
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Tendai Huchu’s first novel, The Hairdresser of Harare, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim, and has been translated into German, French, Italian and Spanish. His short fiction in multiple genres and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gutter, Interzone, AfroSF, Wasafiri, Warscapes, The Africa Report and elsewhere. In 2013 he received a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Sacatar Fellowship. He was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize. His new novel is The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician.
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Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese-born writer whose work, written in English, has received critical acclaim and a high profile for its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. Highlighting the challenges facing Muslims in Europe and “telling the stories of flawed complex characters who struggle to make choices using Muslim logic”, Aboulela’s work explores significant political issues. Her personal faith and the move in her mid-twenties from Sudan to Scotland are a major influence on her work. Literary influences include Arab authors Tayeb Salih and Naguib Mahfouz as well as Ahdaf Soueif, Jean Rhys, Anita Desai and Doris Lessing. The Scottish literary landscape and writers such as Alan Spence and Robin Jenkins have also been influential. Leila Aboulela’s works have been included in cultural educational programs supported by the British Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the US.
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Robin Yassin-Kassab is the author of the novel The Road from Damascus.
He
has lived and worked in London, France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia and Oman and now lives in Scotland.
He is co-author with Leila al-Shami of the forthcoming book on the Syrian revolution and war, Burning Country. He
has lived and worked in London, France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia and Oman and now lives in Scotland.
His
journalism on Syria has appeared at the Guardian, the National, al-Jazeera,
Foreign Policy and elsewhere.
He
is a co-editor and regular contributor to PULSE,
recently listed by Le Monde Diplomatique as one of its five favourite websites.
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Selina Nwulu is a writer, poet and researcher for a think tank.
She has written for a number of outlets such as The Guardian, Red Pepper, the Free Word Centre and Sable litmag.
Her
work has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies
including collections by the RSA, Lunar Poetry, and Emma Press. She has
performed at a number of festivals including Glastonbury, Edinburgh
Fringe and Fiery Tongues Festival in Holland. She has previously toured nationally with Apples and Snakes, representing London as part of the ‘Public Address II tour’
Her work often touches on social and environmental justice as well as identity, nostalgia and belonging.
Her first chapbook collection, The Secrets I Let Slip, published by Burning Eye Books is out now. She is currently Young Poet Laureate for London 2015/6.
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Jane Yeh is an American poet who has lived in England for over a decade. Born in New Jersey, she was educated at Harvard University, the University of Iowa—where she took an MFA at the prestigious writers’ program—and at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has taught at a number of universities in the UK, including Oxford Brookes University, and is now a Senior Researcher in Creative Writing at Kingston University.
She has published two collections with Carcanet: Marabou (2005), which was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Whitbread Book Award and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and The Ninjas (2012). She has received many other awards and fellowships for her work, including a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a residency at Yaddo, and was a judge for the 2013 National Poetry Competition. She has also written on a number of subjects, from fashion to sport, for publications including The Village Voice and The Times Literary Supplement.
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London born author and speaker
Tosin Coker is proclaimed as the UK’s first black sci-fi author. Within less than three months of her powerful début 'The Mouth of Babes' hitting the bookshelves, Tosin had attracted the attention of esteemed producer and director, Menelik Shabazz.
Calling upon her own life experiences as an inheritor of the Sickle Cell blood disorder, Tosin inspires by way of example, enthusing that "the only limitations are those set by the boundaries of the mind".
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Haris Durrani is a writer of fiction, memoir, and academic essays. His debut, Technologies of the Self, received the Driftless Novella Prize and is forthcoming from Brain Mill Press. He is an M.Phil. candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at University of Cambridge and holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Columbia University, where he co-founded The Muslim Protagonist Symposium.
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Anthony
Anaxagorou is an award winning poet, prose writer, playwright,
performer and educator. Since becoming the first young poet to win the London
Mayor’s Poetry Slam in 2002, he has continued to be an inspiring and important
voice in spoken word, publishing eight volumes of poetry, a spoken word EP and
a book of short stories. His collection ‘The Blink That Killed The Eye’ was
published by Jacaranda Books in 2014 and he has since won the Groucho Maverick
Award in 2015 consisting of a £10,000 prize, a lifetime membership to the club
and a Gavin Turk sculpture. Anthony is also the founder and artistic director
of Out-Spoken, an incredible event of poetry and live music in London, and he
is the chief editor and founder of Out-Spoken Press.
Anthony
has performed alongside artists such as Kate Tempest, Akala and Linton Kwesi
Johnson, as well as making numerous appearances on BBC, and in 2013 his poem
‘Dialectics’ was interpreted and performed by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. Poems
such as ‘I Am Not A Poet’, ‘If I Told You’ and ‘You’ have achieved wide acclaim
for their honest and articulate interpretation of the truths of the world,
delivering powerful messages illustrated with wondrous imagery to create a
variety of meanings in a single line and a wealth of responses and reactions to
his emotion-evoking and awe-inspiring words.
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Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire is the co-founder of the Writivism pan-African literary initiative. He has written about literature, arts, culture
and politics for a range of publications including The Guardian, This is Africa
and Chimurenga. He has appeared at a range of literary events including Africa
Writes, Storymoja, Ake and International Literature Showcase and is currently
an MSc Fellow at the African Leadership Centre (ALC), King's
College London. He has previously taught Law and Human Rights at Makerere,
Uganda Christian and Martyrs universities.
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JJ Bola, is a Kinshasa born, London raised
writer, poet, educator and workshop facilitator. London and UK based, but also
international; Paris, Brussels, Boston etc, most recently San Francisco and
Oakland, where he won the Oakland Poetry Slam. JJ performs regularly at shows
and festivals such as Tongue Fu, Vocals & Verses, Chill Pill, The
Round House, Ventnor Fringe, etc as well as Universities; SOAS, UCL, Oxford,
Lincoln, University of Birmingham, Standford University and Merrit College in
the Bay and other public institutions.
JJ Bola has published two books of poetry
Elevate and Daughter of the Sun (ebook). His third, and latest, is his most
comprehensive poetry collection WORD, which was launched to a sold out crowd,
during Refugee Week on the 18th of June 2015 at Dalston Roof Park. JJ
Bola’s work is centred on a narrative of empowerment, humanisation, healing of
trauma as well as discovery of self through art, literature and poetry.
Creating the increasingingly popular addage, 'hype your writers like you do you
rappers', he believes that the true purpose of poetry (art) is to expose the
reality of this world and how to, most importantly, survive it.
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Patrick Vernon OBE is a leading expert on African and Caribbean
genealogy in the UK. Founder of Every Generation Media and 100 Great
Black Britons. Patrick was selected by the Queen as Pioneer of the Nation
for Cultural History in 2003.
He has researched family history and Swahili culture in East Africa and
Oman as a Clore Fellow and has advised the BBC, The National Archives,
The National Trust, Royal Geographic Society, Victoria & Albert
Museum and the British Council. Patrick write for
The Voice, Guardian, and Mental Health Today. In 2012 he was awarded an
OBE for his work tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority
communities in Britain. Having worked for the Department of Health, NHS
and the voluntary sector Patrick is an Associate
Fellow at the Department of the History of Medicine at Warwick
University, England. Patrick is a Patron of Santé a refugee and asylum
seekers social enterprise based
in Camden.
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Sareeta
Domingo is a writer and editor from South East London. Her debut novel The Nearness of You will be published by
Piatkus Books in May 2016.
She has been commissioned to write several short
stories in collections of erotic fiction for Agent Provocateur, and was also
commissioned to write a novella in the genre for Pavilion Books. She writes reviews of
contemporary romance titles on her blog, The Palate Cleanser.
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Radhika Swarup spent a nomadic childhood in India, Italy,
Qatar, Pakistan, Romania and England, which gave her a keen sense for the
dispossessed. She has written opinion pieces for Indian broadsheets and the
Huffington Post as well as short stories for publications including the
Edinburgh Review. Her new novel, Where the River Parts, will be published by
Sandstone Press in February 2016.
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A graduate of the Royal College of Music
International Opera School and the Flanders Opera School, Ghent, British
baritone Peter Brathwaite is distinguishing himself as an exciting young
operatic talent. Recent engagements have included role and company debuts with
Opera de Lyon, the Nederlandse Reisopera, Opera Holland Park, Glyndebourne,
English Touring Opera and Edinburgh International Festival. On the concert
platform, he has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Estonian National
Symphony Orchestra, HET Gelders Orkest, HET Symfonieorkest, the London
Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Brathwaite is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
“Virile baritone,
clean enunciation and sensitive acting”(The Telegraph)
“The indefatigable
young baritone lights up the stage every time he appears”(WhatsOnStage)
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Courttia
Newland is the author of seven works of fiction including his debut,
The Scholar. His latest novel, The Gospel According to Cane, was
published in 2013 and has been optioned by Cowboy Films. He was
nominated for the Impac Dublin Literary Award and The Frank O’ Conner
award, as well as numerous others. His short stories have appeared in
many anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4. He is currently a PhD
candidate in creative writing.
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Catherine Johnson has written many novels
for young readers including the award winning Sawbones, and her most recent,
Carnegie Medal nominated The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo. She's spent a
life in stories, working at Centerprise in Dalston, as writer in residence in
Holloway Prison as well as working on acclaimed British film Bullet Boy. She's
written for BBC1 - Holby City - as well as with Simon Schama on Rough
Crossings. This year sees the sequel to Sawbones in October and some
exciting TV developments. She is also a mentor with MegaphoneWrite.
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Peter Kalu is a novelist, playwright and
poet and has previously won the BBC Playwrights Award, The Voice/Jamaica
Information Service Marcus Garvey Scholarship Award and Contact/BBC Dangerous
Comedy Prize. His YA books include, The Silent Striker and Being
Me.
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Rachel Shabi has written
extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East. Her
award-winning book, Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands, was
published in 2009. She received the International Media Awards Cutting
Edge prize in 2013, the Anna Lindh Journalism Award for reporting across
cultures in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize the same
year.
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Raymond Antrobus is a poet, performer and hearing aid
user, born and bred in East London, Hackney. His poems have been published
in magazines and literary journals such as The Rialto, Magma Poetry, Oxford
Diaspora's Programme, British Council Literature, Shooter Literary
Journal, The Missing Slate, Morning Star, Media Diversified and University Of
Arkansas Press. Raymond has read and
performed his poetry at festivals (Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival etc) and
universities (Oxford, Goldsmiths, Warwick etc. He has also read internationally (South Africa, Kenya,
North America, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Switzerland etc)
Raymond is co-curator of popular London poetry events Chill Pill (Soho Theatre and The
Albany) and Keats House Poets.
Raymond’s work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, The Big Issue, The Guardian and at
TedxEastEnd. Sky Arts and Ideas Tap listed Raymond in the top 20 promising
young artists in the UK. His second
collection - Shapes &
Disfigurements Of Raymond Antrobus - is published by
Burning Eye Books. He is currently one of six poet Laureates for London.