INDRA WUSSOW is a literary scholar and translator, researcher, writer and curator with twenty years of experience in the arts, and in community arts projects worldwide. She is an editor of a series of contemporary African fiction ` AfrikAWunderhorn’ for the German publisher “Das Wunderhorn” in Heidelberg. She is a monthly columnist in the South African arts magazine “Creative Feel”.
In 2002, she founded the Sylt Foundation, which develops and carries out interdisciplinary international cultural projects. She also works as a coach using Narrative Therapy, Narrative Coaching and Transactional Analysis to support her clients in their wish to change and become their true selves.
She further obtained postgraduate degrees in Social Entrepreneurship (Gordon School of Business Science, South Africa) and Innovation and Design Thinking (MIT; Columbia University, Dartmouth University, US). She uses innovation tools in her projects to enable change systemically on a social, communal, individual and transgenerational level.
Indra has developed and worked extensively in community projects that connect counselling with arts practices and storytelling, especially in transforming countries such as South Africa, Chile, Myanmar and Cambodia. As a researcher and writer, she investigates how post-atrocity societies engage with the past, along with how that violent past impacts the present and future and enables or disables reconciliation processes.
Indra studied Comparative Literature and German as a Foreign Language in Erlangen/Germany, Berkeley/USA and Florence/Italy. She is currently living in Johannesburg and Sylt/Germany.
CAROL ALYEK BEYANGA is an editor who works with print titles, digital platforms, and publishing houses. Her experience in editing spans over 18 years. She has worked in different roles including as features editor, special projects editor and managing editor for the Daily Monitor newspaper in Uganda, and as managing editor – digital content, supervising all the digital platforms of Nation Media Group – Uganda (NMG-U). Carol also works with the Legal, Human Resource and Marketing departments at NMG-U and edits a number of their documents including, policies, handbooks, and high-level official reports. She also does editing work with publishing houses such as Fountain Publishers, as well as consults on personal writing projects. She is currently the Head of Mentorships, Partnerships and Monetization at NMG-U. She is passionate about seeing people grow and improving their careers and lives, and as a result is involved in mentoring programmes with organisations, especially mass communication departments at universities.
Carol has a BA in Social Sciences from Makerere University as well as an MA in Journalism Studies from Cardiff University. She is also a member of the Uganda Editor’s Guild.
CHRISTOPHER CONTE is a writer, editor, journalist and consultant. He is an editor of Crossroads: Women Coming of Age in Today’s Uganda, a 15 highly-varied, personal essays in which a group of Ugandan women explore how traditional African culture shaped their personal lives, and discuss what they want to preserve and change about the culture now.
He graduated from Harvard College, and spent the first 22 years of his career as a newspaper man. He covered the US Congress for Congressional Quarterly, and then spent 15 years as a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal, covering economics, the White House, labor, domestic policy and international affairs.
In 1996, he became a staff correspondent for Governing Magazine, where he reported on a wide range of domestic US social policy issues. He also reported on telecommunications for the Benton Foundation, public health for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and international development for the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation. The latter job led him to travel extensively in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.
Christopher worked as a Knight International Health Journalism Fellow in Uganda from 2008 to 2010, and in 2011 he moved to New Delhi, India, where he helped establish a post-graduate journalism training program. Since then, he was worked as an international journalism educator for the International Center for Journalists.
JESSICA A. KAAHWA, Ph.D., possesses a long and varied career in facilitation and designing of participatory communication methodology for development. By the time of her retirement in March 2020 she was a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Performing Arts and Film at Makerere University, Kampala, where she also received her Masters of Arts degree. Widely travelled, Dr. Kaahwa’s undergraduate degree is from University of Benin, Nigeria where she also worked as a broadcaster with the External Service – Radio of Nigeria. Dr. Kaahwa went on to study Theatre History, Theory and Criticism at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, where she received her Ph.D. in 2001. Dr. Kaahwa has been the architect of a number of national initiatives that have sought to use theatre and media as a constructive force in conflict settings and for health improvement. She has and continues to experiment with theories that expand the discourse on theatre applications. In her recent experimentation she has worked wıth theatre for personal meaning in empowerment of persons ın post conflict situations. She continues to work on integrating “Processes Theory” into main-stream Applied Theatre practice. In addition, she has reviewed seminal writings in Applied Theatre and Drama scholarship.
Dr. Kaahwa is a great believer in “teaching by doing” and has in recent years, conducted training facilitation for both national and international organizations and institutions of higher education. In 2011, she was invited to write and read the “World Theatre Day Speech” and consequently a Special Guest at UNESCO – ITI Assembly, Paris, France (March 23, 2011). Also in 2014 she received United States Alumni Globe in recognition of her contribution to Uganda’s communıty development. Ever since, she has continued to train students and conduct local and international community empowerment engagements using applied theatre. In 2018 Dr. Kaahwa was honoured wıth 70th International Theatre Institute Anniversary Medal and in 2019 she was once again received the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre Gold Award.
On 1st March, 2020, Dr. Kaahwa celebrated 32 years of teaching at Makerere University in the Department of Performing Arts and Film, which also marked the beginning her retirement from formal employment into offering consultancy services in theatre applications. She has also setup a physical theatre library for diverse theatre scholarship/practice needs and plans to continue mentoring prospective theatre artists.
Dr. Kaahwa is the current President of Uganda Centre of International Theatre Institute (ITI), East African Region and International Theatre Arts Juror of ITI.
EMMA SHERCLIFF is a literary agent with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. In 2020, she founded Laxfield Literary Associates as a response to the lack of literary agents outside London. She provides representation for authors in Suffolk and Norfolk, and writers from under-represented backgrounds. Her clients include Brian Chikwava, Kalaf Epalanga, Olumide Popoola and Kayode Somtochukwu.
Emma has worked for publishing companies in Paris, Melbourne, Abuja and London, and as a consultant for the British Council in Nigeria, Iran and Ukraine. She was formerly Managing Director of Macmillan English Campus, a global digital publishing division of Macmillan Publishers, and Sales & Rights Director of Cassava Republic Press UK, an award-winning independent African publishing company.
Emma holds an MA in Modern Languages from Cambridge University and an MA in International Development & Education from the UCL Institute of Education. She is a doctoral candidate at the UCL Institute of Education; her PhD research focuses on the role and contribution of women within the African publishing industry.
MILDRED K.BARYA is a writer from Uganda and an assistant professor at UNC-Asheville, where she teaches creative writing and world literature. Her publications include three poetry books, as well as prose, hybrids, and poems forthcoming or published in Joyland, Shenandoah, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, Ruminate Magazine, Obsidian, The Poetry Review, Nowhere Magazine, poets.org, Poetry Quarterly, Asymptote Journal, Matters of Feminist Practice Anthology, Prairie Schooner, New Daughters of Africa International Anthology, African American Review, and more. She’s at work on a new poetry collection and creative nonfiction. One of her essays—Being Here in This Body—won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award, and is published in the North Carolina Literary Review, 2021. She received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver, MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, and B.A. in Literature, Makerere University. She is a board member of the African Writers Trust, and also coordinates the Poetrio Reading Events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café in Asheville. Visit her blog http://mildredbarya.
LYNN TAYLOR has been working for more than thirty years on the editorial, commissioning and production of academic books in African Studies across the Humanities and Social Sciences. At James Currey Publishers, from 1990 until 2020, she helped to build a substantial and well-respected list of monographs, edited collections and series, including African Articulations, African Literature Today and African Theatre. Co-publishing with African publishers making the research available to readers on the African continent itself, and maintaining productive and positive relationships with the authors were key roles. She also represented the list at UK and international conferences; wrote catalogue and cover copy; did picture research for covers; briefed designers and typesetters, and managed a team of freelancers.
Since September 2020, Lynn has been working as a freelance editor and proofreader of academic books, journal articles, PhD scripts, policy reports, life-writing and fiction. She has an MSc in Social Anthropology from the LSE, and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of African Cultural Studies.
GORETTI KYOMUHENDO is one of Uganda’s leading novelists and founding director of the African Writers Trust, which promotes synergies and collaborative learning between African writers and publishing professionals on the continent and in the Diaspora, through training and skills development, mentorship, and a biennial international writers’ conference.
She was appointed Chair of Judges for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, 2021.
Goretti holds an MA in creative writing from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her first novel, The First Daughter, was published in 1996, followed by Secrets No More in 1999, which won the Uganda National Literary Award for Best Novel in the same year. In 2002, she published a novella, Whispers from Vera. Her third novel, Waiting, was published by The Feminist Press in New York in 2007. In 2014, she published the Essential Handbook for African Creative Writers. She has also published several short stories and children’s books.
The first Ugandan woman writer to receive the International Writing Program Fellowship at the University of Iowa, Goretti has been recognised for her work as a writer and literary activist nationally and internationally, and has represented her country at numerous forums worldwide.
In 2019, Goretti was featured among the 100 Most Influential Africans by the UK-based, bestselling Pan African Magazine, New African. She was appointed a member of the Commonwealth Foundation’s Civil Society Advisory Governors representing Africa, in 2020.
Goretti is a founding member of FEMRITE –Uganda Women Writers’ Association and Publishing House –and worked as its first Director for ten years (1997-2007), where she designed, delivered and managed pioneering literature and publishing projects.
MADHU KRISHNAN is Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures at the University of Bristol. Her research considers the dynamics of contemporary African literary production, with a specific emphasis on the work of Africa-based collectives and organisations. She is currently working on a five-year EU-funded project on Literary Activism in 21st Century Africa, which looks specifically at literary ecologies in Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
Madhu is author of three academic monographs: Contemporary African Literature in English: Global Locations, Postcolonial Identifications (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Writing Spatiality in West Africa: Colonial Legacies in the Anglophone/Francophone Novel (Boydell & Brewer, 2018) and Contingent Canons: African Literature and the Politics of Location (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
She has guest edited issues of journals including Wasafiri, Research in African Literatures and Journal of Postcolonial Writing and, with Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, Kate Wallis and Ruth Bush, is currently editing a special issue of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies on New Approaches to Literary Activism in 21st Century Africa. With Christopher Ouma, she convened the Small Magazines, Literary Networks and Self Fashioning network from 2016-18, working in collaboration with a range of academics from across the African continent, Europe and North America, as well as literary collectives including Writivism, Chimurenga and Bakwa. In addition to her academic work, Madhu also serves as a literary producer, freelance editor and writer. Her previous projects have included a collaboration with the Writivism Literary Initiative in honour of its fifth birthday, producing the anthology Odokonyero: A Writivism Anthology of Short Fiction by Emerging Ugandan Writers (2018) and, more recently, a collaborative project on creative writing and literary translation with Bakwa Media, which resulted in the publication of the bilingual anthology of short fiction Your Feet Will Lead You Where Your Heart Is / Le crépuscule des âmes sœurs (2020). In 2016 and 2017 she co-facilitated the Arts Managers and Literary Activists Workshop at the Writivism Festival and in 2018 she co facilitated the AMLA Academic Writing workshop. In 2019 she ran the inaugural Hargeysa International Book Fair Academic Writing Workshop. Madhu is active in a number of literature organisations in her home of Bristol, including roles with the Bristol Poetry Institute, Bristol Cultural Development Partnership and Literature Works.
ASSESSORS FROM PREVIOUS MAP EDITIONS.
JEANNE-MARIE JACKSON AWOTWI is an associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale. She is the author of two books: The African Novel of Ideas (Princeton 2021), and South African Literature’s Russian Soul (Bloomsbury 2015). She works across English, Russian, Afrikaans, Shona, and Anglo-Fante intellectual traditions, and is also the editor of the Field Reports blog for the journal Modernism/modernity.
JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI is a Ugandan fiction writer.
Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. Her second book is a collection of short stories, Manchester Happened for the UK/Commonwealth publication and Let’s Tell This Story Properly (for US/Canada publication) came out in Spring 2019. It was shortlisted for The Big Book prize: Harper’s Bazaar. Her third book, The First Woman for UK/Commonwealth and A Girl is a Body of Water for USA/Canada publication came out in Autumn 2020.
Jennifer is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize 2018. She won the Global Commonwealth Short story prize 2014 for her short story, Let’s Tell This Story Properly. She is a Cheuse International Writing Fellow (2019) and KNAW-NAIS residency (2021). She has a PhD from Lancaster University and has been (senior) lecturer at several universities in Britain.
LEILA ABOULELA is a Sudanese author and the first winner of the Caine Prize. Her latest books include the novel Bird Summons and the short story collection Elsewhere, Home, winner of the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila’s work has received critical recognition and a high profile for its distinctive exploration of migration and Islamic spirituality. Her previous novels are The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the year, Minaret and Lyrics Alley, Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages and she was long-listed three times for the Orange Prize. Leila was born in Cairo, grew up in Khartoum, and now lives in Aberdeen. She is Honorary President of the SSSUK-the Society for the Study of the Sudans, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
KATE WALLIS is a Lecturer in World Literatures in the Department of English and Film at the University of Exeter, as well as an editor and literary producer with 20 years experience’ of working in the publishing industry. She is currently working on a monograph exploring pan-African literary networks post-2000 building on her doctoral research on Kwani Trust, Farafina and Cassava Republic Press. Her work has been published in Wasafiri, Research in African Literatures and the Routledge Handbook of African Literature. She was previously Head of Humanities Publishing at Palgrave Macmillan. She is a Director for Kigali-based publishing company Huza Press, a co-founder and editor of www.africainwords.com, and co-founder and co-producer of Africa Writes–Bristol.
GILBERT BRASPENNING was born in Prinsenbeek, The Netherlands on 6th September 1961. He moved to Boechout, Belgium in 1998, where he has been living since. He has a Masters in African linguistics and literature, Leiden University, The Netherlands, earned in January 1987 with special focus on Nubian languages and East African literature.
In 1990, Gilbert was an editorial board member of ‘Africa Focus’ (Ghent University) and from 2000 – 2012, he was the Founder and Coordinator of the bookshop ‘Black Label’: an online bookshop for African literature & culture books. Since 2013, Gilbert has been the Editor of Africa Book Link, a platform and newsletter for African literature and criticism, where he has published numerous book reviews and articles.
Gilbert was a staff member at ‘De Nederlandse Taalunie’ (Dutch Language Union), The Hague, 1987 – 1992, Policy officer at ‘Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’ (Free University), 1993 – 1998 and also, a Policy Officer at ‘Karel de Grote Hogeschool’ (Karel de Grote University College), Antwerp, Belgium, in 1999.
He is currently working on a database for modern African literature and criticism.
SUSAN NALUGWA KIGULI is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at Makerere University. She holds a Ph.D. in English from The University of Leeds. She was the African Studies Association Presidential Fellow, 2011 and this presented her with an opportunity to read her poetry at the Library of Congress, Washington DC in November 2011. She has served as the chairperson of FEMRITE and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the African Writers Trust. She was the chief convener for Celebrating Ugandan Writing: Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino at 50 held at Makerere University in March 2016. She is the author of The African Saga and Home Floats in a Distance/Zuhause Treibt in der Ferne (Gedichte): a bilingual edition in English and German.
