Wasafiri Magazine

Join Wasafiri – the UK’s leading magazine of international contemporary writing since 1984 – as we celebrate the 17th edition of the prestigious Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. This two-part event will open with a panel discussion on change and activism within the publishing industry, including questions on the impact of AI, freedom of speech, writers' rights, the current translation boom, and more.

In this incisive interview, Zena Agha speaks to one of the world's greatest cartoonists and journalists, Joe Sacco. They talk about his 2003 book, Palestine, in the context of the ongoing genocide,his most recent release, The Once and Future Riot (2025), which investigates the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots in India, and other work from across his decades-long career.

The Pulitzer Prize finalist writer Ingrid Rojas Contreras speaksto the prolific Mexican author Valeria Luiselli about the 'gorgeous nesting dolls' of Luiselli's many works of fiction and nonfiction, particularly her latest book, Beginning Middle End (Fourth Estate, 2026). Their conversation bubbles and flows like lava from a volcano as they discuss the liminal space between languages, road trips, borderlands, mythologies, memory, and how we organise and structure narratives and time.

In this sincere, vulnerable poem, Wasafiri's current International Writer in Residence Safia Elhillo describes a visit to Khartoum, Sudan, the place of her heritage. She notes with wonder and softness how different memories come back to her – the feel of a mattress, the sound of a familiar Arabic – amid reflections on the different languages she carries. Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

In these three strikingly different poems, Safa Khatib plays with imagery to build pace and create a dark and troubling atmosphere. 'End of the Line' is anchored in the real world – with overheard conversations and overhead announcements on the train – but unease filters in through the cracks. Meanwhile, 'Trespass' and 'Al-Fatihah' address the reader directly while ghostly figures and ideas give the impression of something slipping beyond our grasp.

Can acts of solidarity – including protest and political organising – shape, influence, and alter our understanding and definition of literature itself? Is the act of placing one word after another, in conversation, also an act of solidarity? How does the page act as a frontline, and what new vocabularies of resistance can emerge from it? What is the role of storytelling in liberation?

This humourous, tongue-in-cheek fiction by Tamil writer Senan – translated by Meena Kandasamy – follows Iyer, an upper-caste man who arrives in London and begins working at a chicken shop on Walthamstow High Street. There, he navigates visa quagmires, house-hunting, coworker drama, and falling in the 'wrong' kind of love. This text is from Senan's latest book-length work, titled Londonkaarar (Londoners). Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

In this poem by Sudanese writer, doctor, and activist Mujja Alloba, a woman in exile seeks to forge both an individual and collective sense of power and revolution. It is presented here in the original Arabic as well as translations in Turkish and English by A.F, Erkan Gürsel,and Akış Ka. In a special introduction,Gürsel highlights the responsibility of translators not just to texts but also to the wider political conversations they engage in.

Susheila Nasta Editorial Note Tim Youngs Morality and Ideology: The Arranged Marriage in Contemporary British-Asian Drama Delia Krause A Grain of Wheat: Ngugi’s Tribute to the Armed Rebellion Stewart Brown ‘Spoiler’, Walcott’s People’s Patriot Louis James Reflections at the Bottom of the River: The Transformation of Caribbean Experience in the fiction of Jamaica Kincaid Martin Turner The Poetry of Sohrab Sepehri C W Watson Dutch Colonial Literature Fred D’Aguair A Great House by the Sea and...

Issue 29 Issue 29: Spring 1999 Taking the Cake: Black Writing in Britain Interviews with Rasheed Araeen, David Dabydeen, Maya Jaggi, Jackie Kay and Susheila Nasta Poems by Leila Aboulela, Mark de Brito, Bernardine Evaristo, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Elaine Savory, Dorothea Smartt and Janet Kofi-Tsekpo Fiction by David Dabydeen and Romesh Gunesekera Essays by Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall and Caryl Phillips Articles on George Lamming, Sam Selvon, Mustapha Matura and race relations after Stephen Lawrence...