Last year, when my book of short fiction,
Foreign Soil, was released in the United Kingdom, I found myself on the phone with BBC radio, doing a pre-interview. At the end of our lively and in-depth conversation, the producer asked: "So who are the other Australian writers of Afro-Caribbean descent, or from a similar background, who are working in literary fiction — what novels should we be looking out for?" I paused. "There are… well, there are some African diaspora and African Australian writers I know who work in a lot of different forms, who I really hope you’ll also see on the shelf one day…"
I stammered. "Natasha Jynel. Candy Bowers." I also named a handful of African Australian poets and memoirists. "Tariro Mavondo. Magan Magan. Abe Nouk. Abdi Aden...