Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora

Congratulations to our 2024 LOATAD Black Atlantic Residents!

We received 442 applications from across Africa and the Diaspora for the 12 places on the residency. Get to know the exceptional writers and thinkers who’ll be joining us at LOATAD this year to grapple with the question, What is Africa to Me? individually and in community:

MOUSTAFA AHMAD (SOMALILAND) is a writer and researcher from Somaliland who finds inspiration at the crossroads of literature, cultural heritage, and the intricate political dynamics of the Horn of Africa. With a solid foundation in international relations, Moustafa navigates the intricate connections between governance, cultural narratives, and the vibrant literary expressions that define this diverse region. Known for his commitment to preserving cultural heritage, Moustafa has been a driving force behind the success of the acclaimed Hargeysa International Book Fair. His contributions to the vibrant creative space of Fankeenna in Hargeisa underscores his dedication to nurturing and showcasing the diverse cultural legacy of the area. Moustafa’s published works offer a compelling exploration of the region’s complexities. His deep understanding of the socio-cultural and political dimensions allows him to uncover and share the compelling stories that resonate within the Horn of Africa.

TIA BANNON (UK) is an actor, photographer, writer and inter-disciplinary artist from Ladbroke Grove, London. She trained at RADA. Her project HoodRat—a nature writing proposal examining vermin and the intersections of race and class in British society—was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. She was a recipient of the London Writers Award 2022 and commissioned to write a poem by Lewisham Council and We Live and Breath. and just because you cant see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there is a response to air pollution and the disproportionate effects it has on Black and Brown people in the borough. She was a part of The Bush Theatre emerging playwrights programme 2022, and also worked there as a script consultant on the award winning play Elephant. She is currently working on her debut book—a narrative non-fiction memoir about the distances you have to go in order to find out who you are. It is a journey of finding place, after multiple displacements from family, land and within the Diaspora. 

TOM CORREIA (BRAZIL) was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. A writer-photographer with a degree in journalism and a specialisation in writing and creation [in progress], he has a hybrid trajectory that involves projects in literature and street photography. In addition to being the creator and editor of Laroyê Magazine, he was Director of Books and Reading at the Pedro Calmon Foundation and curated two editions of the National Literary Festival · Flin and also of the International Literary Festival of Cachoeira · Flica. Having been published in several collections, he is the author of the short story books Nihilists Club [Urutau, 2021, semi-finalist for the Oceano’s Prize], Slopes, alleys & tatters [2015], Under a sky of deep gray [2011] and Memorial of mediocre [2002, Casa de Jorge Amado Foundation Award for unpublished authors]. He participated in an artistic residency at Instituto Sacatar [Itaparica] and Hangar [Lisbon], where he developed a project that resulted in the independent photobook, UnBlack Lisbon [2020], a series that addresses the invisibility of Black people in Portuguese photography. He’s currently developing his first Afrofuturist work exploring themes such as prejudice, unemployment, and Aporophobia.

ASHEDA DWYER (JAMAICA/CANADA) lives between Toronto, Canada and Kingston, Jamaica. Her performance work, I Will Not Weep for Babylon: Black Oratures on the River (2022), interspersing poetry and fiction over original dub-reggae, was commissioned for public programming on the “Clepsydra Stage” (2022) designed by Black Quantum Futurism at Documenta Fifteen. Her latest, Foremothering. Or, The Weight We Have Been Carrying Across Time features in “Interviewing the Caribbean” (IC) from the University of the West Indies Press, edited by Opal Adisa Palmer and Carole Boyce Davies. Other publications include Holy Metal (2022) in the “Ancestors” issue of ROOM Magazine. Pelham Park Gardens (2021) and Lightrail (2021) in the “Island of Influence” fall issue of Arc Magazine, guest-edited by Brandon Wint. A Personal Dispatch from Slavery in Chile (2020) shortlisted for the TLN Tele Latino Prize. Oversight (2018) won the “What’s Your Story” literary competition, presented by the Ontario Book Publisher’s Organization. Her debut manuscript formed part of the fall cohort for Emerging Poetry at Banff Center for the Arts in 2023. The project is currently receiving support from the Toronto Arts Council for publication in 2025. 

LAILA GARRONI (BRAZIL) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist and journalist. As an actor and writer, she has worked in films such as Calidris (2019), selected for the Munich Film Festival, and Stand Clear of The Closing Doors (2020), a short film also directed by her. While living in New York City, Laila co-founded the collective Evoé, during which time she won the award for Best Theatrical Production for the play Sete Gatinhos at the Brazilian Press Awards. The group also produced Voices from Brazil, an evening of readings with the renowned Black writers Ana Maria Gonçalves (Um Defeito de Cor) and Cidinha da Silva (Um Exu em New York). She also served as an actress and screenwriter on the Orixa’s Project, a virtual reality experience inspired by the Orixas and Black women of the African Diaspora. More recently, Laila finished writing her first book, When a Hurricane Takes You Home, a comedic, spiritual, and profound collection of personal stories about belonging, racism, and psychosis. The book is part of the official selection of the Prêmio Carolina Maria de Jesus, an award given by the Cultural Department of the Brazilian Government.

DR. KIRSTIE KWARTENG (USA/GHANA) is a storyteller and a curator of stories. She is the founder of The Nana Project, an online platform dedicated to preserving firsthand accounts of Ghana’s history. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London and her research interests include African diaspora populations, second generation diaspora communities, and transnationalism. She is also a migration and diaspora practitioner with experience working with policymakers, academics, civil society organizations, and diaspora communities in North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

MUNGANYENDE (THE NETHERLANDS/RWANDA) is an author and professor in Beyoncéology at ArtEZ academy in the Netherlands, where she examines the performance of sound and culture as a mode of knowledge production. She is a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction and she organises womanist interventions that centre the perspectives of Black women and refugee daughters within literature, performance and visual culture. She serves as the chairwoman of the Steenbergen Stipendium photography prize at the National Museum of Photography and is currently a fellow at De Groene Amsterdammer magazine. Her debut novel will be published by Pluim Publishers. Munganyende is considered an important voice of her generation and has received various awards and honourable mentions, including the Unesco Literature Prize, ELLE 30, and VOGUE Voices. In 2023, Munganyende was a resident at the Zanele Muholi Art Institution in Cape Town. She lives, works, and loves between Dakar, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Her favorite pronoun is ‘tantine’. 

KÉCHI NNE NOMU (NIGERIA) is a Warri-born Nigerian writer. She is a Fine Arts Work Center Writing Fellow and a Narrative Annual Poetry Contest finalist. Her work is forthcoming, published, or honourably mentioned in Best American Essays, 2020, The Yale Review, Boston Review, The Sun Magazine, Narrative Magazine, The Republic Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University, where she received support as a Stein/Brodey Fellow, and has taught at the University of Virginia. In 2018, Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani selected her poetry chapbook Acts of Crucifixion for the New Generation African Poets box set, Tano.

KIM M. REYNOLDS (USA) is an arts and politics writer, critical media scholar, and tech researcher from Ohio in the US, based in Cape Town, South Africa. She is primarily concerned with the relationship between antagonism and imagination, and their generative potential. Her work focuses on the narrative and critique of Black arts and politics (with a focus on the US and South Africa) and her interests include examining colonial scripts in popular media, Black feminist and queer social justice histories, and practicing anti-extraction methodologies in knowledge creation and the arts. Her work has appeared in several journalistic outlets. She has contributed poetry and prose to exhibitions as well as the poetry anthology, Woven With Brown Thread and contributed to the artist monograph of Mary Evans published by the Zeitz MOCAA. She holds two Master’s degrees in critical media analysis and Black film from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Cape Town (UCT). Kim works as a writer, lecturer, and facilitator and is co-lead of the research and organising coalition, Our Data Bodies.

NINA RIZZI (BRAZIL) is a writer, translator, researcher, teacher, editor and curator. She has poems, essays and translations published in various magazines, newspapers, supplements and anthologies in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Canada, USA, Angola and Mozambique. She is the author of books including “drums for n’zinga,” “when you come to see a fire-colored banzo,” “mermaid in the glass of water,” “notebook-goiabada” and the children’s books, “The best mother in the world” and “Elza : the voice of the millennium.” She translated, among other works, books by Abi Daré, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Gayl Jones, Ijeoma Oluo, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Cade Bambara as well as Ghana’s very own Ruby Yayra Goka’s “Even When Your Voice Shakes.”

HELEN TAMRAT (USA) is writer and aspiring educator from near Philadelphia, USA. Her work infuses long-standing traditions of Black Feminist Theory, decolonial African Feminism, and Freedom Dreaming. Specifically, her writing is intimately linked to her commitment to becoming an educator who creates space for historically oppressed students to concretely imagine and demand futures of liberation that resist white supremacy. She is currently in Accra pursuing a creative project that aims to highlight and learn from the Freedom Dreams of Ghanaian Feminists in order to recognise their role as profound knowledge holders holding the keys to our liberation.  

CRYSTAL KWADWA TETTEY (GHANA/MADAGASCAR) is an artist whose work manifests primarily in music, poetry, performance, advocacy, and activism. Her Malagasy and Ghanaian origins are often reflected in her language, posture, and relationship(s) with self and universe. She has over 10 years’ experience in managing arts-based projects, and in amplifying the voices and narratives of social justice platforms and initiatives. Her clients have included CKU (once a self-governing cultural institution under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Writers’ Project of Ghana (WPG), EhaLaKasa, Goethe-Institut Ghana, Alliance Française d’Accra and Canadian OCAD University. Her podcast, CURATING DREAMS | A Creative’s Podcast delves into the experiences and viewpoints of leading artists and human rights defenders from Africa and the Black Diaspora. From 2019 to 2022, she curated and led youth summits for the 30+ programmes of Special Olympics Africa (an organisation promoting the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities). She also created and led a Special Olympics podcast, Conversations with my Hero, that documented discussions among African youth and sports leaders.