By Neil Armstrong

Toronto will soon be hosting book festivals that will feature several local and international authors of African, Black and Caribbean heritage.

The Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) at the Harbourfront Centre from September 19 to 29 invites readers to immerse themselves “in the joy of storytelling that spans boundaries, showcases fresh perspectives, and ignites creativity and imagination in us all. This year’s lineup of conversations, readings, masterclasses, performances and exhibits explores the concept of “writing home” – from books and stories about the places we all call home, to the ideas, cultures and conflicts that inform what home means to us.”

On September 21, award-winning novelist and poet Ian Williams will discuss “The Lost Art of Conversation” in this special preview event ahead of his 2024 Massey Lectures Tour. He will be joined in conversation by TIFA director Roland Gulliver.

Ruha Benjamin is an internationally recognized writer, speaker and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where she is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab.

The award-winning author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code and editor of Captivating Technology, among many other publications, will participate in a conversation titled “Social Justice and Transformation.”

Gloria Blizzard is an award-winning writer and poet, and a Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages. Her work explores spaces where music, dance, spirit and culture collide. She brings these perspectives to essays, memoir, poetry and reviews.

Kern Carter is the author of five novels, including Beauty Scars, Boys And Girls Screaming and And Then There Was Us. In addition to his writing, Carter writes and produces film and teaches professional writing at a college in Toronto.

The Poets & Writers 2019 Editor of the Year, Dawn Davis is the founding publisher of 37 INK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. She has edited many prizewinning and New York Times bestselling books, including one of the 2023 New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the Year.

Chinenye Emezie‘s short stories and essays have appeared in Africa Book Club, Kalahari Review, Book Lovers Hangout and Opinion Nigeria. She is the 2013 winner of the Africa Book Club Short Story Competition. Born in a House of Glass is her first novel. Born in Nigeria, she currently resides in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Martin Gomes recently obtained a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at York University where he studied music. Ringleader of his Band “JuiceBox” with whom he won the TIFF: Battle of the Scores competition in 2020. He is a beatboxer, musician, chorister, model, writer and poet.

Tasneem Jamal was born in Mbarara, Uganda, and immigrated to Canada in 1975. Her debut novel Where the Air Is Sweet was published to critical acclaim in 2014. That same year she was named one of 12 rising CanLit stars on CBC’s annual list of Writers to Watch.

Shayla Lawson is an award-winning poet, journalist and disability advocate from Lexington, Kentucky. They are the author of four books including How To Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir.

Canisia Lubrin’s books include Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst. Lubrin’s work has been recognized with the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, the Derek Walcott Prize, the Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Stars prize and others. 

Yolanda T. Marshall is an award-winning, agented Caribbean-Canadian author of 20 diverse, inclusive and festive children’s picture books. In 2023, she was honoured for her outstanding contribution to Canadian literature with the My People Award by the Blackhurst Cultural Centre. Marshall was also named the Caribbean Media Loop Awards Author of the Year for 2022 and recognised as one of Canada’s 100 Accomplished Black Women.

Esau McCaulley, PhD is an author and The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College. His writing and speaking focus on New Testament Exegesis, African American Biblical Interpretation and Public Theology. 

Dwayne Morgan, a 2023 appointee of the Order of Ontario and two-time Canadian National Poetry Slam Champion, began his spoken word career in 1993. In 1994, he founded Up From The Roots to highlight African Canadian and urban artists. Morgan has earned multiple accolades, including the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Celebration of Cultural Life award, the African Canadian Achievement Award and the Harry Jerome Award. 

Chido Muchemwa is a Zimbabwean writer and academic currently based in Toronto. Her short stories have previously appeared in Augur, Canthius, Catapult, Humber Literary Review and Prism International amongst others. She has been shortlisted twice for the Short Story Day Africa Prize and placed 2nd in the Humber Literary Review’s 2020 Emerging Writers Fiction Contest. 

Noor Naga is an Alexandrian writer currently based between Cairo and Toronto. Her verse-novel Washes, Prays (2020) won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Arab American Book Award. Her novel If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English (2022) won the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Arab American Book Award.

Devan Rajkumar, aka “Chef Dev,” is a classically trained and award-winning chef who has plowed his way through top-tier kitchens, marquee events and much-lauded television programming, pushing boundaries of innovation and creativity at every step of the way. Proudly Guyanese-Canadian with strong East Asian roots, Chef Dev celebrates the food traditions of East and West Indian cuisine.

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