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Actual

Inua Ellams
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Author_Inua Ellams
caleb femi
Category=DCF
Category=JPW
Category=QDTS
commentary
diaspora
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forthcoming
london
nigeria nigerian
poor
racism
systemic
trump
tupac

Product details

  • ISBN 9781037203695
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Nov 2026
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021

Including essays from the author published for the first time in print

'I was blown away by this book' BERNARDINE EVARISTO

The Actual is a symphony of personal and political fury sometimes probing delicately, sometimes burning with raw energy. In poems that swerve and crackle with a rare music, Inua Ellams unleashes a full-throated assault on empire and its legacies of racism, injustice and toxic masculinity.

Written on the author's phone, in transit, between meetings, before falling asleep and just after waking, this is poetry as polemic, as an act of resistance, but also as dream-vision. At its heart, this book confronts the absolutism and 'foolish machismo' of hero culture from Perseus to Trump, from Batman to Boko Haram. Through the thick gauze of history, these breathtaking poems look the world square in the face and ask, 'What the actual . . . ?'

'Bristles with energy . . . Consistently vivid' GUARDIAN
About Inua Ellams
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.

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