In conversation

On combining academic work, poetry and love of carnival

Talking about his influences from Nigeria to Manchester via West African folk tales.

Talking about Roy Williams's love of dialogue and collaborations

Talking about his writing process, his flight at the age of four with his mother from Idi Amin’s Uganda, and why precision in language is so important to him.

Speaking in multiple voices and the gift of different identities

Growing up Black in the care and mental health systems, embodied cultural knowledge and Black masculinity.

Talking about what she's learned along the way and how she pays that learning forward.

John Siddique meets multi-genre, multi-voiced, writer Peter Kalu to talk about his life long fascination and journey with the power of story.


Roger Robinson won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2019, and the following year, he spoke to Gabriel Gbadamosi about empathy in black writing, and migrant experience becoming rooted in words to keep us human.

Rommi Smith has excavated an overlooked history of black people in Britain in her work and particularly in interpreting a series of extraordinary photos from the archives of the TopFoto agency. Through Smith's carefully researched poetic responses she is changing the story of what we consider the nature of Britain.

Angela’s Saini’s book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, though celebrated by figures such as the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, also attracted racist social media trolls. Saini talks to Colin Grant about the timeliness of her book and the evolution of her writing with a social conscience.