Ellah Wakatama Allfrey

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, OBE
Born	Ellah Wakatama 16 September 1966 Harare, Zimbabwe
Nationality	British
Occupation	Literary editor and publisher
Known for	Editing

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (born 16 September 1966) is a Zimbabwe-born editor and literary critic. She is a former Deputy Editor of Granta (2009–13)^[1][2][3] and former Senior Editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House. She sits on the board of the Writers' Centre Norwich,^[4] has been Deputy Chair of the Council of the Caine Prize for African Writing^[5] since 2011^[6] and is a patron of the new Etisalat Prize for Literature.^[7] She was the 2013 Chair of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Allfrey's journalism has appeared in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Observer and she is a regular contributor to the book pages of NPR. Her broadcasting includes a series of author interviews for Granta.com and she contributes regularly to NPR's All Things Considered and BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review. In 2011 Allfrey was on the judging panel of both the David Cohen Prize and the Caine Prize. In 2012 she was chair of the fiction panel for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.^[8] Her introduction to Woman of the Aeroplanes by Kojo Laing (Heinemann African Writers Series) was published in 2012.^[9] She edited the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara (2014), showcasing the writers in the Africa39 initiative.^[10] She was a judge of the Man Booker Prize for 2015.^[11][12]

Awards

A Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts,^[13] Allfrey was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to the publishing industry.^[14]

In 2016 she received a Culture for Service Award from Goshen College, from where she graduated in 1988.^[15]

Selected articles

• Review of Call It Dog by Marli Roode (The Guardian, 28 August 2013)^[16]
• "The great Chinua Achebe was the man who gave Africa a voice" (The Observer, 24 March 2013)^[17]
• "All Hail the African Renaissance" (The Telegraph, 9 September 2011)^[18]
• "The cultural battle gave us books and music of genius" (The Observer, 13 April 2013)^[19]

Podcasts/video

• Guardian Books podcast: Political fiction^[20]
• Ellah Wakatama Allfrey on Behind the Headlines.^[21]
• Ellah Allfrey, talks with Audible about the fourth edition of Granta′s "Best of Young British Novelists".^[22]

Opinion

• The 10 best contemporary African books.^[23] The 10 best contemporary African books, as chosen by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey.
• Publishing: Book ends and new beginnings,^[24]
• "No Violet: From the African Booker to the Booker longlist"^[25](quote)

Interviews

• "Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE on Behind the Headlines".^[26]
• "Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Granta in Nairobi, Kenya".^[27]
• Nyana Kakoma, "Ellah Wakatama Allfrey on how she became an editor and why editing should be professionalised", African Writers Trust, 30 June 2014.

Collaborations

• African Writers Trust Literary Feast, Uganda, May 2012.^[28]
• Literary week Nairobi, judge.^[29]
• Judge for Kwani? Manuscript Project^[30] – literary prize for unpublished fiction by African writers.
• "The Trans-Atlantic, the Diaspora, and Africa" participant.^[31] – conference hosted by Oxford University Research Centre for the Humanities, to discuss the newest theoretical scholarship emerging from the interdisciplinary fields of USA-derived Diaspora Studies and British-derived Trans-Atlantic Studies, and how these fields have diverged and converged in relation to the idea of Africa.
• Patron of Etisalat Prize for Literature^[32] – pan-African prize celebrating first-time African writers of published books of fiction.
• Judge for 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize^[33] – award for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2000–5000 words) in English.
• Wasafiri magazine (contributor), Volume 22, Issue 3, 2007.^[34]
• Interviewer – Binyavanga Wainaina's Book Launch^[35]
• Peter Godwin, The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe^[36] (acknowledgements).
• Judge for 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing.^[37]
• Introduction to Kojo Laing, Woman of the Aeroplanes.^[38]
• Judge 2011 for David Cohen Prize for Literature.
• Editor of Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara (2014), with a Preface by Wole Soyinka
• Judge 2015 for Man Booker Prize
• Editor of Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (Cassava Republic Press, 2016)

References

1. Benedicte Page, "Allfrey joins Granta Magazine", The Bookseller, 20 July 2009.
2. Granta website.
3. Joshua Farrington, "Allfrey to leave Granta", The Bookseller, 3 May 2013.
4. "The board", Writers' Centre Norwich.
5. "Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, OBE – Deputy Chairperson", The Caine Prize, Council Members.
6. "Caine Prize announce Ben Okri as Vice President and Ellah Allfrey as Deputy Chair", Caine Prize press release 26 April 2011.
7. Prize Profile, Etisalat Prize for Literature.
8. Judge Spotlight: Ellah Allfrey, NGC Bocas Lit Fest website.
9. Woman of the Aeroplanes, African Writers Series, Pearson.
10. Mukoma Wa Ngugi, "Beauty, Mourning, and Melancholy in Africa39", Los Angeles Review of Books, 9 November 2014.
11. "2015 Man Booker Prize Judges Announced, Including Caine Prize Council Member Ellah Allfrey", Books Live, 15 December 2014.
12. Alison Flood, "Man Booker prize lines up highbrow judging panel for 2015 award", The Guardian, 11 December 2014.
13. "Ellah Allfrey", RSA.
14. Richard R. Aguirre, "A royal honor for Ellah Wakatama Allfrey", Goshen College website, 4 April 2011.
15. "Four alumni receive honors at Homecoming Weekend", Goshen College, 22 September 2016.
16. Watakama, Allfrey. "Call It Dog by Marli Roode – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
17. Comment is free, The Observer, 24 March 2013.
18. Watakama, Ellah (9 September 2011). "All Hail the African Renaissance: The Storymoja Hay Festival with the British Council in Nairobi". The Telegraph.
19. Quoted in "Margaret Thatcher and her influence on women", The Observer, 13 April 2013.
20. Presented by Claire Armitstead and produced by Tim Maby, Guardian Books podcast: Political fiction, 5 April 2013.
21. SWRadioAfrica.
22. "Ellah Allfrey, Deputy Editor of Granta, talks about Granta Best of Young British Novelists", YouTube.
23. "The 10 best contemporary African books. As chosen by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, deputy editor of Granta Magazine. From a reinterpreted Heart of Darkness to a barstool in Congo", The Observer, 26 August 2012.
24. Quoted by Parselo Kantai, Nairobi, in "Publishing: Book ends and new beginnings", The Africa Report, 8 February 2012.
25. Quoted in "No Violet: From the African Booker to the Booker longlist", GOtv, 25 July 2013.
26. Interview by Lance Guma on SW Radio Africa, Zimbabwe, broadcast 3 January 2011.
27. britishcouncilarts on Flickr.
28. "Updates from African Writers Trust", 6 April 2012.
29. "Granta comes to Nairobi", British Council, 19 June 2013.
30. "Ellah Wakatama Allfrey is Series Editor for Kwani? Manuscript Project", 27 November 2013
31. The 2013 Callaloo Conference, 27–30 November 2013.
32. Toni Kan, "Etisalat launches new fiction prize", The Nigerian Telegraph, 5 June 2013.
33. "2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize judges: Chair: Ellah Allfrey, Commonwealth Writers.
34. Wakatama, Ellah; Letitia Adu-Ampoma, Biyi Bandele, Sarah Brouillette, Margaret Busby, Becky Ayebia, David Dabydeen, Lizzy Dijeh, Stacy Engman (October 2007). "Among the contributors". Wasafiri. 22 (3): 91–94. doi:10.1080/02690050701566123.
35. Adam Wagwau, "Binyavanga Wainaina's Book Launch" (review), Ghafla!, 5 June 2012.
36. Godwin, Peter (2011). The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe. London: Picador. p. 368. ISBN 033050777X.
37. Caine Prize website.
38. Laing, Kojo (2011). Woman of the Aeroplanes. Oxford: Heinemann. p. 286. ISBN 9780435045722.

External links

• Interview by Shalini Gidoomal: "Ellah Allfrey on what needs to change for more African writers to get a chance to sit at the table", YouTube, 28 October 2013.
• NPR: Ellah Allfrey page, WNYC.
• Charles Henry Rowell, "An Interview with Ellah Allfrey", Callaloo, Volume 36, Number 3, Summer 2013, pp. 753–57. 10.1353/cal.2013.0148
• Chimamanda Adichie chats with Ellah Allfrey (video), Brittle Paper, 23 May 2013.