Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda

Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda at Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 1

Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda kicked off the eighth and final day of Afrolit Sans Frontières on Instagram from Lusaka, Zambia on Monday, March 30, 2020.

Afrolit Sans Frontières is an initiative for writers of African origin curated by Zukiswa Wanner. Sixteen writers from 10 African countries are sharing their work from 15 different cities in English, French, Lingala, and Portuguese to a global virtual audience online over eight days. Since the festival started on Monday, audiences have interacted with Richard Ali Mutu in Kinshasa, DR CongoLeye Adenle in London, UKRémy Ngamije in Windhoek, NamibiaHawa Jande Golakai in Monrovia, Liberia,  Maaza Mengiste in Zurich, SwitzerlandMukoma Wa Ngugi in Ithaca, New York, USANozizwe Cynthia Jele in Johannesburg, South AfricaYara Monteiro in Alentejo, PortugalBisi Adjapon in Accra, GhanaMohale Mashigo in Johannesburg, South AfricaShadreck Chikoti in Lilongwe, Malawi, Chiké Frankie Edozien in Accra, Ghana and Kalaf Epalanga in Berlin, Germany.

Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda has been published in the African Women Writers (Afriwowri) e-publication anthology Different Shades of a Feminine Mind, The Budding Writer anthology by Zambia Women Writers’ Association (2017), and featured on AfricanWriter.com for her story To Hair is Human, To Forgive is Design (2018). She was published in Short Story Day Africa’s Hotel Africa (2018) and her debut novel No Be From Hia was selected as a Graywolf Africa Prize finalist 2019.

Natasha, who was streaming from Lusaka, had a problem with her network operator as the session kept stopping and starting for its duration. In spite of the technical challenges, she read a beautiful excerpt from her debut novel before fielding questions from across the world.

On her writing, it worked because of her multiple heritages; her Zambian grandfather was a published author with six works before he passed on and she was also inspired by her Nigerian grandparents. She was able to integrate this heritage into her writing and her current book No Be From Hia is a prime example of this.

Natasha is not a full-time writer thus she finds it tough going to juggle the writing and her busy job in advertising and PR as well as her family. Luckily, she is supported by family and friends in ensuring that she can keep up.

Comments

One response to “Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda at Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 1”

  1. […] started off with Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda from Lusaka, Zambia before Abubakar Adam Ibrahim took over three hours later. Abubakar is a Nigerian creative writer […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.