Poems by two Dominicans, Celia Sorhaindo and Jane Ulysses Grell, are featured in New Daughters of Africa, a just published anthology of writings by more than 200 women of African descent. The book, edited by Margaret Busby OBE, was launched in London last week as part of the city’s International Women of the World Festival. Poems by Grell and Sorhaindo are included in the anthology alongside contributions from internationally renowned writers such as Andrea Levy (Small Island), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith.
Busby, whose grandfather was the Dominican Pan-Africanist George Christian, hosted the occasion in which some of the contributors read extracts of each other’s work to a packed audience.
Twenty-five years ago, Margaret Busby’s ground-breaking anthology Daughters of Africa illuminated the ‘silent, forgotten, underrated voices of Black women’ (The Washington Post). New Daughters of Africa continues that mission for a new generation. It brings together a selection of overlooked artists of the past with fresh and vibrant voices that have emerged from across the globe, from Dominica to Zimbabwe and Angola to the USA.
The Women of the World (WOW) Festival London takes place annually at the Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest cultural centre. This year WOW hosted a range of sold-out events led by leading creatives and thinkers, such as Angela Davis and Naomi Klein.
Jane Ulysses Grell is a teacher, poet and storyteller in the Africa-Caribbean oral tradition. She is a regular contributor as writer and reviewer to scholastic publications, and has had her work included in several poetry and prose anthologies. Her books include Mosquito Bounce and White River Blues published by Papillote Press, based in the UK and Dominica. She lives in London.
Celia Sorhaindo’s poems have been published in The Caribbean Writer, Moko Magazine and Interviewing the Caribbean journal. She was longlisted for the UK National Poetry Competition 2017/18. She is a fellow of the 2016 Cropper Foundation Creative Writers Workshop and 2017 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently working on her first poetry collection. She lives in Dominica.
