Nandi Jola

Poet and playwright, Nandi Jola, lived in South Africa under the apartheid regime until she was 21, when she moved to Northern Ireland.

She’s a Rachel Baptiste 2022 Programme recipient at Smock Alley Theatre. A creative writing facilitator for Ulster University ‘Books Beyond Boundaries’, and a commissioned poet for Poetry Jukebox and Impermanence Way Archive Project 2022.   Her play “The Journey”, opened the International Literature Festival in Dublin in 2020, and she represented Northern Ireland at the Transpoesie Poetry Festival in 2021.  

We talk about Direct Provision, South Africa, and the threat of deportation that hangs over so many people. Her debut poetry collection - Home is Neither Here Nor There - is published by Doire Press and is a beautiful, personal account of growing up under apartheid in South Africa, and her struggle as an immigrant in Belfast. 

And she reads two poems from this collection - ‘I’m Not A Racist, But’ and ‘Ink’ and her specially commissioned piece for WANDER.

Thanks again to the Arts Council of Ireland for funding this new commission - and for their support for this podcast series.