This week’s reviewer is Koleka Putuma from South Africa. Koleka is an award-winning poet, playwright, and theatre-maker whose work confronts race, gender, queerness, faith, and power with lyrical precision and emotional force. Her writing moves between page and stage, blending political urgency with intimate reflection. She is also the founder of Manyano Media, a platform dedicated to amplifying Black queer voices and interdisciplinary storytelling. Her debut poetry collection Collective Amnesia won the 2018 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, was named Book of the Year by City Press, and listed among the best books of the year by The Sunday Times and Quartz Africa. In 2022, She received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Poetry. She has also been recognised as a Forbes Africa Under 30 honouree, and her work is widely taught, reviewed, and celebrated internationally.
Here are her 5 Favourites
1. Exhale, Queer African Erotic Fiction (HOLAAFRICA! Project)
2. God’s Children Are Little Broken Things, Arinze Ifeakandu
3. Under the Udala Trees, Chinelo Okparanta
4. Loud and Yellow Laughter, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese
5. The Sex Lives of African Women, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
