The Sheffield Black Humanities Series draws together the innovative work happening in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and aims to foster connections and innovations across the University. The focus is on the intellectual and creative work of people of African descent and people of colour in Britain and on harnessing literature and culture for anti-racist practice. Our events are diverse, ranging from performance poetry, theatre and Hip Hop, Black publishing, Black nature writing and the history of Black and marginalised ethnic groups in Sheffield and the Yorkshire region. We are working in partnership with cultural and heritage organisations to develop our upcoming programme and are keen to explore external research collaborations and to engage participants and audiences from outside of the university, including schools, reading groups and community organisations.
Centre for Poetry and Poetics in Collaboration with Black Humanities Series Presents: A Reading With Safia Khan, Inua Ellams and Imtiaz Dharker
Thursday 10 October 2024 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Lecture Theatre 2, The Diamond, The University of Sheffield
32 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield, S3 7RD
Safia Khan is a junior doctor and poet. Her debut collection (Too Much Mirch) was published in 2022 with Smith | Doorstop and woParty) which celebrates poetry & hip hop, and Poetry + Film / Han the New Poets Prize. She has been commissioned to write and deliver lectures in poetry for various universities and literary organisations, including The British Library, The University of Oxford, The Poetry Business, and the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine. Her work has been published in various journals and anthologies including The North, BATH MAGG, Poetry Wales, Introduction X: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets (New Poets List), We’re All in It Together: Poems for a disUnited Kingdom (Grist), Dear Life (Hive), Surfing the Twilight (Hive).
Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and facilitates workshops in creative writing where he explores reoccurring themes in his work - Identity, Displacement and Destiny - in accessible, enjoyable ways for participants of all ages and backgrounds. His awards include: Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2009, The Liberty Human Rights Award, The Live Canon International Poetry Prize, The Kent & Sussex Poetry Competition, Magma Poetry Competition, Winchester Poetry Prize, A Black British Theatre Award and The Hay Festival Medal for Poetry. He has been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Tate Modern, Louis Vuitton, BBC Radio & Television. His poetry books include ‘Candy Coated Unicorn and Converse All Stars’ published Flipped Eye, 'The Wire-Headed Heathen' by Akashic Books, The Half God of Rainfall by 4th Estate and The Actual by Penned in The Margins. His plays include ‘Black T-shirt Collection’, ‘The 14th Tale’, ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ and ‘Three Sisters’ published by Oberon. He founded The Midnight Run (an arts-filled, night-time, urban walking experience.) The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P ck (P+F/H) which celebrates Poetry & Film.
Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She is an accomplished artist and video film-maker, and has published six books with Bloodaxe, Postcards from god (including Purdah) (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The terrorist at my table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009), Over the Moon (2014) and Luck Is the Hook (2018). Her seventh, Shadow Reader, is published in 2024. All her poetry collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of the books; she is one of very few poet-artists to work in this way. She was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2014, presented to her by The Queen in spring 2015, and has also received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Over the Moon was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2014. Her poems are on the British GCSE and A Level English syllabus, and she reads with other poets at Poetry Live! events all over the country to more than 35,000 students a year. She has had a dozen solo exhibitions of drawings in India, London, Leeds, New York and Hong Kong. She scripts and directs films, many of them for non-government organisations in India, working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children. In 2015 she appeared on the iconic BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. In 2020 she was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University. She lives in London.
Please note this is an in-person event and we would love you to be there but if you can't make it to Sheffield you can log in by no later than 5.50 on the following link: meet.google.com/fdh-igyk-hrr
Event curated by Agnes Lehoczky in collaboration with Veronica Barnsley.
- Previous Events
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An evening of readings with Warda Yassin, Inua Ellams & Imtiaz Dharker
Wednesday 8th May 6.30 pm, The Diamond, Lecture Theatre 4
Warda Yassin is an award-winning British born Somali poet and secondary school teacher based in Sheffield. She was a winner of the 2018 New Poets Prize for her debut pamphlet Tea with Cardamom (Poetry Business, published 2019). From October 2020 she will be taking on the role of Sheffield Poet Laureate.
Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer who was born in Nigeria. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and facilitates workshops in creative writing where he explores reoccurring themes in his work - Identity, Displacement and Destiny - in accessible, enjoyable ways for participants of all ages and backgrounds. His awards include: Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2009, The Liberty Human Rights Award, The Live Canon International Poetry Prize, The Kent & Sussex Poetry Competition, Magma Poetry Competition, Winchester Poetry Prize, A Black British Theatre Award and The Hay Festival Medal for Poetry.
Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She is an accomplished artist and video film-maker, and has published six books with Bloodaxeh, and her seventh, Shadow Reader, is to be published in 2024. All her poetry collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of the books; she is one of very few poet-artists to work in this way. She was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2014, presented to her by The Queen in spring 2015, and has also received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Writing and Publishing Panel
Wednesday 15th May 6.30pm, The Diamond, Lecture Theatre 2
Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novel, Butterfly Fish, and short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. She co-presented the BBC's Turn Up for The Books podcast, alongside Simon Savidge and Bastille frontman Dan Smith.
Vanessa Onwuemezi is a writer living in London. She is the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize in 2019 and her work has appeared in literary and art magazines, including Granta, Frieze and Prototype. Her debut story collection, Dark Neighbourhood, was published in 2021 and was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2021.
Yvonne Battle-Felton’s novel Remembered (Dialogue Books/Blackstone Publishing) was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). She won the Northern Writers Award in fiction (2017) and received a British Library Eccles Centre and a Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship. Curdle Creek, her second novel, will be published in October, 2024 by Dialogue Books (UK) and Henry Holt (US). She is a senior commissioning editor (literary fiction) at John Murray, and Associate Professor and Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education. For her children’s writing, she was commended in the Faber Andlyn BAME (FAB) Prize (2017) and she has six titles in Penguin Random House.