MAAFAMAAFA is an epic poem about reparations and the female body. MAAFA undoes the erasure of trauma and of black femininity. Maafa has killed her father and been granted eternal life. Longlisted for the 2023 PEN Voelker Award for Poetry Collection Maafa is Swahili for catastrophe or holocaust, and echoes the Hebrew word Shoah. Without a word for a traumatic event, its erasure is always in progress. Maafa killed her father in the barracoons because the

Perhaps you’ll want to annoy your family by reading them out

linking al-Jarrah’s personal journey with that of his ancient forebear Barates

that is no surprise

2019 andWith an Unopened Umbrella in the Pouring Rain

Nicolette Polek

realising while death is everywhere in our culture

laying data bare with a poet’s meticulous hand

whose wonderfully ironic ‘How to be Black’ is one of the many highlights of this collection

Why has Elly such power over them all

And introducing Nicki Monaghan whose first novel appears from Cape in 2006

a work of historical fiction

twelve-year old Jinny is vowing revenge on the ‘metal men’ who have invaded her Maetae tribe’s homeland