Margaret Busby Presents: New Daughters of Africa

Panellist include:

Margaret Busby OBE, Hon. FRSL (Nana Akua Ackon)
Margaret is a major cultural figure in Britain and around the world. She was born in Ghana and educated in the UK, graduating from London University. She became Britain’s youngest and first black woman publisher when she co-founded Allison & Busby in the late 1960s and publishednotable authors. An editor, broadcaster and literary critic, she has also written drama for BBC radio and the stage.She has judged numerous national and international literary competitions, and served on the boards of such organisations as the Royal Literary Fund, Wasafiri magazine and the Africa Centre. A long-time campaigner for diversity in publishing, she is the recipient of many awards, including the Henry Swanzy Award in 2015 and the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2017. She lives in London.

Bridget Minamore (1990s)
A British-Ghanaian writer from south-east London, she was shortlisted to be London’s first Young Poet Laureate, has been commissioned by the Royal Opera House and the Tate Modern, and writes regularly for The Guardian and The Stage about pop culture, theatre, music, race and class. She was chosen as one of The Hospital Club’s Emerging Creatives, as well as one of Speaking Volumes’ 40 Stars of Black British Literature. Titanic, her debut pamphlet of poems on modern love and loss, came out in 2016.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied (1990s)
A Sudanese-born Australian mechanical engineer, writer and social advocate, she worked on oil and gas rigs before becoming a full-time writer and broadcaster. She published her debut memoir, Yassmin’s Story (2016), at 24, then became the presenter of Australia Wide, a national weekly current-affairs show on the ABC. After hosting the documentary The Truth About Racism, she created Hijabistas for the ABC, a series looking at the modest fashion scene in Australia. She is an internationally accredited F1 reporter and a regular contributor to the BBC. Her writing has appeared in publications including Teen Vogue, the New York Times and The Guardian. She founded the not-for-profit Youth Without Borders at the age of 16 and has since served on numerous boards and councils. She is currently based in London.

Yrsa Daley-Ward (1980s)
Born to a Jamaican mother and a Nigerian father, she was raised by her devout Seventh Day Adventist grandparents in the small town of Chorley in the north of England. In her teens she became a model, and worked in South Africa for three years, before winning recognition as a performance poet. Her published writing includes short stories and memoir, as well as poems, in which she notably addresses topics such as identity, race, mental health, and femininity. She is the author of On Snakes and Other Stories (2013), Bone (self-published in 2014, new Penguin edition in 2017) and The Terrible (2018). She now lives in New York.

Jacqueline Bishop (1970s)
Born in Jamaica, she is now based in the US. Her most recent book, The Gymnast & Other Positions, was awarded the 2016 OCM Bocas Award in Non-Fiction. She is also the author of the novel The River’s Song (2007), and two collections of poems, Fauna (2006) and Snapshots from Istanbul (2009). She has received awards including the Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for short-story writing, a year-long Fulbright grant o Morocco, and a UNESCO/Fulbright Fellowship to Paris. She is an accomplished visual artist and has had exhibitions in several countries and is an Associate Professor at New York University.

Yemisi Aribisala (1970s)
A Nigerian-born author, she is best known for her thematic use of food to explore Nigerian stories. Her award-winning first book, Longthroat Memoirs: Soups Sex & Nigerian Tastebuds (Cassava Republic Press, 2016), uses Nigerian food as a literary substrate to think about Nigeria’s culture and society. Her upcoming book on Nigerian feminism, identity, migration and Christianity, among other critical parameters for engaging Nigeria and the Nigerian, is to be published in 2019. She lives in London with her children.

Karen McCarthy Woolf (1960s)
Born in London to English and Jamaican parents she writes poetry and drama. Her collection An Aviary of Small Birds (2014) was described as “extraordinarily moving and technically flawless” (Poetry Review), a “pitch perfect debut” (The Guardian) and was shortlisted for the Forward Felix Dennis and Fenton Aldeburgh prizes. She makes radio features and drama for BBC Radios 3 and 4, and has presented her work across the world, from the Americas and Europe to South East Asia.

Anni Domingo (1950s)
Growing up in Sierra Leone, she attended school in Freetown, and went on to further education in the UK, where she first trained as an actor and a teacher of speech and drama, obtaining a BA in Drama and English. Later she obtained First-Class BA degrees in Literature and Humanities and an MA in Creative Writing, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2018. She has worked extensively in theatre, radio, TV and film, both acting and directing, as well as teaching English, Drama and Creative Writing. Her company, Shakespeare Link, takes workshops to schools and colleges and she has written workbooks on Shakespeare. She has also written poetry and short stories. Her poem “The Cutting” is published in the text of Bullet Hole, a recent play about female genital mutilation in which she played the lead role. She was joint winner of the 2018 First Drafts competition with an extract from Breaking the Maafa Chain, her debut novel.

Yaba Badoe (1950s)
A graduate of King’s College Cambridge, she worked as a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a general trainee with the BBC. Her debut novel, True Murder,was published in 2009. Her short stories have been published in Critical Quarterly, African Love Stories: An Anthology (2007) and Short Stories: Southern African and Beyond (2009). She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose credits include The Witches of Gambaga (2010) and The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo (2014). She was nominated for a Distinguished Woman of African Cinema Award in 2014.