Event overview
Anni Domingo and J A Mensah in conversation with Deirdre Osborne about their debut novels Breaking the Maafa Chain and Castles from Cobwebs
‘What is Africa to me’ Countee Cullen famously posed in his poem ‘Heritage’. It is a question shared and explored by Anni Domingo and J A Mensah in two arresting debut novels that trace the girlhoods of Black protagonists across the geographies of Britain, Africa and beyond. Set in distinct periods of history, the legacies of enslavement and colonisation set the coordinates for their characters’ physical and emotional odysseys along diasporic routes into womanhood— and longed for family reunions.
Anni Domingo, Actress, Director and Writer, works extensively in Radio, TV, Films and Theatre. Her poems and short stories are published in various anthologies and her plays produced in the UK. Her debut novel, Breaking the Maafa Chain, was published in September 2021 by Jacaranda UK and Pegasus USA and is in paperback from 29 September 2022. An extract won the Myriad Editions First Novel competition (2018).
J A Mensah is a prose and theatre writer and a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of York. Her short stories have recently appeared in The Book of Newcastle (Comma Press), New Narratives for the North East (New Writing North), and Test Signal (Dead Ink and Bloomsbury). Her debut novel, Castles from Cobwebs (Saraband), was long-listed for the 2021 Desmond Elliott Prize and won the inaugural NorthBound Book Award.
Deirdre Osborne Hon.FRSL, FRSA is a Reader in English Literature and Drama at Goldsmiths and co-founder of the MA Black British Literature.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 26 Oct 2022 | 5:00pm - 6:00pm |
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