Kadija Sesay

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Kadija Sesay
Birmingham University
Occupation(s)Literary activist, writer, editor
Websitewww.sablelitmag.org

Kadija George

FRSL (born 1962), also known as Kadija Sesay, is a British literary activist, short story writer and poet of Sierra Leonean descent, and the publisher and managing editor of the magazine SABLE LitMag. Her work has earned her many awards and nominations, including the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement in 1994, Candace Woman of Achievement in 1996, The Voice Community Award in Literature in 1999 and the Millennium Woman of the Year in 2000. She is the General Secretary for African Writers Abroad (PEN International) and organises the Writers' HotSpot – trips for writers abroad, where she teaches creative writing and journalism courses.[1]

Biography

Born in London of Sierra Leonean heritage, Sesay is a graduate of

Birmingham University, in England, where she majored in West African studies.[2][3] She then became a freelance journalist, and from the mid-1990s until 1998 she worked as a black literature development co-ordinator for the Centreprise Literature Development Project, where she set up the newspaper Calabash.[2] In 2001, she founded Sable LitMag.[4]

Sesay has edited or co-edited several books, including Burning Words, Flaming Images: Poems and Short Stories by Writers of African Descent (1996), IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (with

Hansib Publications
, 2005).

In 2007, she created the first SABLE Literary Festival in The Gambia, where she now programmes the Mboka literary festival and bookfair,[7][8] which she co-founded in 2016.[9]

She is co-director of Peepal Tree Press's writer development programme, Inscribe, alongside fellow poet Dorothea Smartt.

Sesay's first full collection of poems, entitled Irki, was published in 2013.[10] Her poetry, short stories and essays have appeared in a range of publications, including the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[11][12]

Sesay was appointed

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[14]

In 2021, with Joan Anim-Addo and Deirdre Osborne she curated This is The Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelf in 50 Books – in the words of Nikesh Shukla "a vital and timely introduction to some of the best books I've ever read"[15] – which is described as "[s]ubverting the reading lists that have long defined Western cultural life", highlighting alternatives by people of African or Asian descent and indigenous peoples.[16]

Selected bibliography

As editor

Poetry

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-134-70025-7
    .
  2. ^ a b "Kadija George" at British Council, Literature.
  3. ^ "Kadija (George) Sesay", Black British Women Writers.
  4. ^ "Kadija George", SI Leeds Literary Prize.
  5. ^ Maya Jaggi, "The forgotten past", The Guardian, 24 June 2000.
  6. ^ IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (2000) at Amazon.
  7. ^ "Kadija George", Mboka Festival.
  8. ^ Mboka Festival website.
  9. ^ "Kadija Sesay", African American Literature Book Club.
  10. ^ Mildred Barya, "Irki is for Homeland, Kadija Sesay's first poetry book", Mildred Barya's House of Life, 21 November 2013.
  11. ^ Olatoun Williams, "New Daughters of Africa" (review), Borders Literature Online, 2019.
  12. ^ "WRITERS & CREATIVES OF COLOUR ONLINE SOCIAL: WITH KADIJA SESAY", Writing Our Legacy, 27 June 2020.
  13. ^ "No. 63135". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 2020. p. B18.
  14. ^ Bayley, Sian (6 July 2021). "RSL launches three-year school reading project as new fellows announced". The Bookseller. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  15. ^ Cox, Sarah (27 October 2021). "Diversifying bookshelves with an alternative literary canon". English and Creative Writing | Goldsmiths.
  16. ^ Susie Mesure (21 October 2021). "Black History Month: Writers urge readers to 'Decolonize Your Bookshelf' with new canon of diverse authors". i.

External links

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