Momtaza Mehri and Violeta Gil in conversation with Cristina Ward

Momtaza Mehri is an award-winning writer and researcher working in the fields of poetry, criticism, education and radio. Since 2014 her work has been published in literary journals and magazines such as Granta, Poetry International, The Poetry Review, Artforum, Vogue and The Guardian.

Described by Bernardine Evaristo as ‘a truly transnational 21st century poet whose words resonate in the wider world’, Momtaza Mehri was named Young People's Laureate of London and is currently poet-in-residence at Homerton College, University of Cambridge. Her first collection of poems, Bad Diaspora Poems, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and won the Forward 2023 Award for Best First Collection, as well as the Eric Gregory Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. The collection asks the question of what it means to write diasporic poetry, blending the experience of his own family with the stories of many others in Somalia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Together with Violeta Gil, a theatre-maker and writer and prestigious Spanish poet of her generation, Mehri will talk about her writing and the role poetry can play in challenging a world governed by race, class and gender. The talk will be moderated by Cristina Ward, director of the Arts Department of the British Council in Spain.

At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books

Event in English