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Susheila Nasta MBE is the former Editor-in-Chief of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing she founded in 1984. A literary activist, writer and presenter, she is Professor of Contemporary and Modern Literature at Queen Mary, University of London and Professor Emeritus at the Open University. She has published widely on postcolonial and contemporary writing, especially on the Caribbean, the South Asian diaspora and black Britain. Her books include Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain (2002); Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk (2004); India in Britain (2012); and Asian Britain: A Photographic History (2013). She is co-editor of the first Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing (forthcoming 2019) and writing a biography entitled The Bloomsbury Indians. She has judged several literary prizes and curated and advised exhibitions including the outdoor touring exhibition, At the Heart of the Nation: Indians in Britain, and Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land for the British Library in 2018. She is literary executor for the estate of Sam Selvon. She received an MBE in 2011 for her services to black and Asian literature, and in 2019 was elected Honorary Fellow by the Royal Society of Literature. She also received the prestigious Benson Medal for exceptional contributions to the advancement of literature.
'As long as we have literature as a bulwark against intolerance, and as a force for change, then we have a chance... Literature is plurality in action; it embraces and celebrates a place of no truths; it relishes ambiguity, and it deeply respects the place where everybody has the right to be understood.'-Caryl Phillips, Olumide Popoola's elegant and lyrical prose is instantly engaging. Her complex work captures the atmosphere and the tempo of the racial tension in King's Cross. She is fascinated with the spaces in between culture and form, and she is adept at moving between Nigeria, Germany and the UK. - Jackie Kay, Guardian
