Before Them, We is an anthology that explores the lives of grandparents and elders before the families they went on to establish, digging deep into those narrative of their lives that are lesser known: who they loved, where and why they migrated, why they had families. The result of a collaborative effort of poets of African descent to bring their personal stories in conversation with each other, the anthology is a poetic meditation on how we engage with the practice of memory.
Featuring 24 poets between commissioned writers and poets who responded to a call-out, ranging from Gen Z to mature voices, contributors include: multi-disciplinary artist, poet and playwright Dzifa Benson; Nigerian-born award-winning poet, playwright and performer Inua Ellams; Zimbabwean literary and sound artist Belinda Zhawi; queer non-binary Nigerian/Togolese writer and performer Michelle Tiwo; Ghanaian-British producer and writer Nii Ayikwei Parkes, who has won acclaim as a children’s author, poet, broadcaster and novelist; Hodan Yusuf, a writer, actress, multimedia journalist and trainer in conflict resolution; digital Somali cultural archivist and independent researcher Ibrahim Hirsi; and Ola Elhassan, a Sudanese poet and electrical engineer.
