Kadija Sesay

Kadija Sesay, also called Kadija George, 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, Candace Woman of Achievement, The Voice Community Award in Literature and the Millennium Woman of the Year. She is the General Secretary for African Writers Abroad (PEN) and organises the Writers' HotSpot - trips for writers abroad, where she teaches creative writing and journalism courses.

Biography

Born in London of Sierra Leonean heritage, Sesay is a graduate of Birmingham University, in England, where she majored in West African studies.[1][2] She then became a freelance journalist, and from the mid-1990s until 1998 worked as a black literature development co-ordinator for the Centreprise Literature Development Project, where she set up the newspaper Calabash.[1] In 2001 she founded Sable LitMag.[3]

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 Courttia Newland, 2000),[4][5] Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2005), and (as Kadija George) Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers (Aurora Metro Books, 2005), Write Black, Write British: From Post Colonial to Black British Literature (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,[6][7] which she co-founded in 2016.[8]

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.[9]

Selected bibliography

As editor
  • Burning Words, Flaming Images: Poems and Short Stories by Writers of African Descent (S.A.K.S. Publications, 1996)
  • IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (with Courttia Newland; London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000)
  • Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2005)
  • Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers (as Kadija George; Aurora Metro Books, 2005)
  • Write Black, Write British: From Post Colonial to Black British Literature (Hansib Publications, 2005)
  • Black British Perspectives: A Series of Conversations on Black Art Forms (with Wesley Zepherin; SAKS Publications, 2011). Other contributors: Raimi Gbadamosi, Paul Goodwin, Sonia Dyer, Kevin Le Gendre, Sheila Chandra, Kwame Kwaten, Carol Tulloch, Avis Charles, Susan Stockwell, Michael McMillan, Jonzi D, Femi Elufowoju Jr, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Margaret Busby and Diran Adebayo.

Poetry
  • Irki, Peepal Tree Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1845232085

References
  1. "Kadija George" at British Council, Literature.
  2. "Kadija (George) Sesay", Black British Women Writers.
  3. "Kadija George", SI Leeds Literary Prize.
  4. Maya Jaggi, "The forgotten past", The Guardian, 24 June 2000.
  5. IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (2000) at Amazon.
  6. "Kadija George", Mboka Festival.
  7. Mboka Festival website.
  8. "Kadija Sesay", African American Literature Book Club.
  9. Mildred Barya, "Irki is for Homeland, Kadija Sesay’s first poetry book", Mildred Barya's House of Life, 21 November 2013.
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