Djelia: Stories, Poetry, Fiction, and Features

Mwatabu S. Okantah was born in Orange, New Jersey in 1952. Mr. Okantah holds the BA degree in English and African Studies from Kent State University (1976) and the MA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York (1982). A former Assistant to the Director of the Black Studies Program at Cleveland State University, he was a Resident Poet in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University and Director of the Center of Pan-African Culture. As a poet and lecturer, Okantah has appeared in various locations throughout the USA, Canada and West Africa. As a performer,he has worked in a variety of musical situations, including time as Griot for the Iroko African Drum & Dance Society and in an ongoing collaboration with the Cavani String Quartet.

Lawrence Olatunde Afolabi is in his early twenties. He graduated from the University of Lagos, Nigeria in 2002 with a B.A (Honors) in Mass Communication. He is a writer, poet, playwright, and novelist. Growing up in Nigeria, he was captivated by the works of David Diop, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and a lot of other writers. He draws his inspiration from reading Africa’s past events and history. He worked as a volunteer for Unicef, UNDP and a lot of other NGOs. Though none of his work has been published, he is a promising writer. His long term dream is to get his work broadcasted on TV Stations all over Africa and in the Diaspora.

Kwame Senu Neville Dawes was born in Ghana in 1962 but grew up in Jamaica where he attended Jamaica College and the University of the west Indies at Mona. He studied and taught in New Brunswick on a Commonwealth Scholarship to Canada. Since 1992 he has been teaching at the University of South Carolina. He is as an Associate Professor in English on the Columbia campus of that institution. He is also a critic, actor, playwright, storyteller, and a poet-reggae singer.

My name is Kalu O. Kalu, a native of Asaga Ohafia in Abia State, Nigeria. I hold a Bachelors degree in Agriculture and Economics, and an MBA in Banking and Finance. Presently, I am the Managing Director/Chief Executive of the First International Bank in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I have been a banker for over 18 years. I write poems as a hobby.

For the distinguished Ghanaian poet, scholar and educator, Kofi Anyidoho, "poetry is no longer a textual art bound to the written/printed page. It is fully liberated from the distancing effect of print technology." His "direct involvement with the production of poetry as "full drama" began when the Ghana National Commission on Children, chaired by the well-known dramatist Efua Sutherland, invited me to plan and direct an appropriate literary-dramatic program for children from selected schools in Accra as part of a flag-raising ceremony at the O.A.U Monument in 1984 to mark O.A.U. Day in the Ghanaian capital." From then on, Anyidoho has gone on to produce and perfect a performance mode that is returning written African poetry to its dramatic oral roots. Kofi Anyidoho has written and performed an impressive number of poems. In addition, he has published extensively on issues related to recent critical debate on African Literature. He teaches at the University of Ghana, Legon.

My name is Kavu Ngala and I come from Kenya. I am a self-taught writer who had all my education in Kenya. I have read widely among African and European writers. My best writers are Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, Sembene Ousmane, Chris Okigbo among many others. I have also read English writers such as John Keats, Shakespeare, Shelley and several others. My model writer is obscure to the English reading public. He is a writer called Shaban Robert who expired in the early 60's. He is the most contemporary of Swahili writers among his peers. I grew up with his poetry. I also write short stories and I am at the moment preparing a manuscript of my poetry which I hope to publish in a collection. At the moment I have just finished a course in Norwegian language offered by the University of Bergen. I hope to pursue literature studies soon.