Event Details

As part of Lancaster University Library's Black History Month celebrations, under the theme of 'Sauting Our Sisters', the award-winning British-Caribbean writer, poet, theatre-maker and multi-disciplinary artist will read for us and discuss her writing career.

Malika Booker is an award-winning British-Caribbean writer, poet, theatre-maker, multi-disciplinary artist and creative writing lecturer. She was the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Royal Shakespeare Company. As well as poetry she has also written for radio and theatre.

In 2001 she co-founded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen to create "a nourishing an encouraging community of writers dedicated to the development of their writing craft." It is now a firmly established writers collective based in London offering bi-weekly writers surgeries. It has supported writers such as Inua Ellams, Warsan Shire and Aoife Mannix. Guest tutors have included Kwame Dawes, Fred D’Aguiar and Bernardine Evaristo.

Her debut collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the Poetry Prize for First Collection from the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Her poem 'The Little Miracles' won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2020.

Amongst many other things things she is currently working on Bread of Redemption, described as "a body of work in conversation with the bible." She will read from this and previous work, discuss her career with the Library's Doug Purvis, and answer audience questions.