TISA: New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set

by Chris Abani, Kwame Dawes

Overview

This twelve-piece, limited-edition box set—an African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) project—features the work of eleven new African poets.

“Dawes and Abani have taken on the vital project of publishing short collections by contemporary poets from Africa, packaged together in beautiful boxed sets.” —New York Times Magazine

The limited-edition box set is a project started in 2014 to ensure the publication of up to a dozen chapbooks every year by African poets through Akashic Books. The series seeks to identify the best poetry written by African poets working today, and it is especially interested in featuring poets who have not yet published their first full-length book of poetry.

The eleven poets included in this box set are: Samuel A. Adeyemi, Nikitta Dede Adjirakor, O-Jeremiah Agbaakin, Rabha Ashry, Jakky Bankong-Obi, Hazem Fahmy, Alain Jules Hirwa, Jay Kophy, Tawiah Naana Akua Mensah, Phodiso Modirwa, and Nneoma Veronica Nwogu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636140766
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	07/04/2023
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.30(d)

About the Author

CHRIS ABANI, a Nigerian-born, award-winning poet and novelist, currently teaches at Northwestern University in Chicago. He is the recipient of a PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, and a Guggenheim Award. He is the author of the novellas Song for Night and Becoming Abigail, the editor of Lagos Noir and the series coeditor, with Kwame Dawes, of the African Poetry Book Series—the latest of which is Tisa: New-Generation African Poets, A Chapbook Box Set.

KWAME DAWES’s debut novel She’s Gone (Akashic) was the winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (Debut Fiction). He is the author of twenty-one books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. In 2016, his book Speak from Here to There, a cowritten collection of verse with Australian poet John Kinsella, was released along with When the Rewards Can Be So Great: Essays on Writing and the Writing Life, which Dawes edited. His most recent collection, City of Bones: A Testament, was published in 2017. His awards include the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Silver Medal, several Pushcart Prizes, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and an Emmy Award. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and is Chancellor Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. Dawes serves as the associate poetry editor for Peepal Tree Press and is director of the African Poetry Book Fund. He is series editor of the African Poetry Book Series—the latest of which is Tisa: New-Generation African Poets, A Chapbook Box Set—and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. Dawes is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2018 was elected as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Bivouac is his latest work published by Akashic.

Editorial Reviews

"An ambitious, vital project that delivers exactly what it promises . . . As a group, the chapbooks dispel stereotypes about African writing. They also illustrate what editors Dawes and Abani note about the many ways poets can understand or redefine their ties to Africa. These insights are poignant and valuable, especially at a time when millions around the globe find themselves somewhere between new countries and ancestral lands they’ve left behind."

Washington Post

"Editors Dawes and Abani Introduce readers to 11 emerging African poets with distinctive perspectives in this 12-piece, limited-edition box set. Sponsored by the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF), this project has been in production since 2014."

Ebony

"“An ambitious, vital project that delivers exactly what it promises . . . As a group, the chapbooks dispel stereotypes about African writing. They also illustrate what editors Dawes and Abani note about the many ways poets can understand or redefine their ties to Africa. These insights are poignant and valuable, especially at a time when millions around the globe find themselves somewhere between new countries and ancestral lands they’ve left behind." —Washington Post

"Editors Dawes and Abani Introduce readers to 11 emerging African poets with distinctive perspectives in this 12-piece, limited-edition box set. Sponsored by the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF), this project has been in production since 2014." —Ebony

“A collection pulsing with fresh talent in a series that poetry lovers worldwide should be grateful for.” —Shelf Awareness"

From the Publisher