Haus für Poesie

Efe Paul Azino (born in Lagos in 1979), one of Nigeria’s best-known performance artists, is the founder and director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival, director of the annual Book and Arts Fair in Lagos and director of the Lagos Black Heritage Festival. He has also produced Nigeria’s first Spoken Word theatre play, Finding Home. He has performed at many festivals, including the Johannesburg Arts Alive Festival, the Ake Book and Arts Festival, the Lagos Book and Arts Festival, the Lights, Camera, Africa!!! Film Festival and the British Council Lagos Theatre Festival.

Publications:
For Broken Men Who Cross Often. Farafina Books 2015

Ómò Faith (born in Lagos in 1985), also known as ‘I Am I’, is a wordsmith, painter, designer and Spoken Word artist. She is currently working on her first publication. As well as her work as a writer, she is a jazz singer and inter-media performer between painting and text. Omo Faith Oshodin has appeared at the renowned Terra Kulture Jazz Forum and runs the blog The Path of Faith.

Niyi Osundare(born in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, in 1947) is a poet, essayist, writer for the theatre and lecturer. He has published 18 volumes of poetry, several plays, essays, articles and criticism. Previously a professor at the English Institute of the University of Ibadan, he is currently Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Orleans. His poetry combines concepts and traditions of the Yoruba culture with Marxist approaches. He uses mythological concepts to underline his struggle against social injustice and inhumanity.
Niyi Osundare’s prizes include the 1991 Noma Award, the 1998 Fonlon-Nichols Award and the 2008 Tchicaya U Tam’si Award for African Poetry, one of Africa’s most prestigious poetry prizes. In 2014 he received the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award, Nigeria’s highest distinction for outstanding creative and intellectual achievement.

Publications (selection):
Random Blues. 2011
City Without People: The Katrina Poems. Black Widow Press 2011
Tender Moments: Love Poems. University Press, Nigeria 2006
The State Visit.Kraft Books 2002
Waiting Laughters. 1990

Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (born in Havana in 1955) is a poet, journalist, critic and translator. He has published thirteen collections of poetry, many of which have been awarded prizes in Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica and Spain, most recently the Alfons el Magnànim Poetry Prize and the Premio Internacional de Poesía Fundación Loewe. His poems have been published in seven Spanish-speaking countries and translated into English, French, Italian, Macedonian, Serbian and Swedish.
In the 1980s, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez was editor of the committed Cuban cultural magazine El Caimán Barbudo. He has edited several anthologies of Latin-American writers. Together with Katherine M. Hedeen he has translated works by Mark Strand and John Kinsella from English into Spanish and works of Juan Gelman and Ida Vitale from Spanish into English. He lives in Havana and Gambier, Ohio (USA), where he is Professor of Hispanic Studies at Kenyon College.

Publications (selection):
desde un granero rojo: poesía reciente. El Ángel Editor, Quito 2014
deshielos. Valparaíso Ediciones, Granada 2014
Cuarto de desahogo: Antología personal, 1975–2010. Letras Cubanas, Havana 2013
desde un granero rojo. Hiperión, Madrid 2013
thaw/deshielos (translated by Katherine M. Hedeen). Arc Publications, Todmorden 2013
reversos. Visor, Madrid 2011
tareas. Renacimiento, Sevilla 2011
Todo buen corazón es un prismático: Antología poética, 1975–2005. Intro.Juan Gelman. La Cabra Ediciones-UANL, Mexico 2010
Intervenciones: Antología poética. Ed. and Intro. Juan Carlos Abril. La Mirada Creadora, Santander 2010

Titilope Sonuga (born in Lagos) is a Nigerian-Canadian poet, writer, actor and performance artist. She has taken the stage at festivals in Lagos, New York, Edmonton and Toronto among others. Her first collection of poems, Down To Earth, won the 2011 Emerging Writer Award of the Canadian Authors’ Association. Her Spoken Word album Mother Tongue was released in 2013. In 2015 she performed at the Inauguration of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Publications:
Abscess. Geko Publishing 2014
Down To Earth.Okadabooks 2011