“I’ve come to believe that we’re living through a golden age of English literature in the UK. The present cultural diversity of our writers gives to our literature a multiplicity of perspectives, a newness, an energy, an unpredictability and a global reach that is unique in our lifetimes and our history.”
Gabriel Gbadamosi is a poet, playwright, essayist and critic.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: fly in league with the night
Gabriel Gbadamosi reflects on visiting Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Tate Britain exhibition, now resurrected after being initially curtailed by Covid restrictions. Her paintings, assembled from the remembrance of friends and associates, are strangely compelling; a modern take on an old art form.
Britain’s wilful amnesia over the Atlantic slave trade
At the British Library, Bonnie Greer and S.I.Martin join Gabriel Gbadamosi to reflect on his play Abolition and Britain’s role in the Atlantic slave trade. The evening, hosted by Nicole-Rachelle Moore, included sea shanties recalling English maritime experience, performed John Dipper and Dave Malkin. Photo by Andy Martinez
Biography
Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish and Nigerian poet, playwright and critic. His London novel Vauxhall (Telegram, 2013) won the Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize and Best International Novel at the Sharjah Book Fair. He was the AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths in British, European and African performance; a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University; and Writer in Residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre.
His plays include Stop and Search (Arcola Theatre), Eshu’s Faust (Jesus College, Cambridge), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin), Shango (DNA, Amsterdam) and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the first Richard Imison Award. He presented BBC Radio 3’s flagship arts and ideas programme Night Waves.
