Actual

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a UK-based poet, playwright and performer who has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and the BBC. His published books of poetry include Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, The Wire-Headed Heathen, #Afterhours and The Actual. His first play The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival. His plays include Barber Shop Chronicles, Three Sister and The Half-God of Rainfall. He is an advisor for Lit In Colour, an ambassador for The Ministry of Stories, First Story, The London Library, a patron of the the Hastings Storytelling Festival, a fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and The Royal Society of Literature, and board member of The Royal Society of Literature, The Poetry Translation Centre, Complicite Theatre and Cheltenham Literature Festival. In 2023, He was honoured with an MBE for Services To The Arts, and an Honorary Doctorate from University of the Arts, London.

This is what poetry looks like when you have nothing to lose, when you speak from the heart, when you have spent years honing your craft so that you can be free. This is what poetry looks like when you are a word-sorcerer, a linguistic swordsman, a metaphor-dazzler, a passionate creator of poetry as fire, as lament, as beauty, as reflection, as argument, as home. I was blown away by this book