Fantastical Culture with Saara El-Arifi, Nia ‘N. E.’ Davenport and Tasha Suri

Brighton Book Festival invites you to join us on a fantastical journey. Fantasy fiction is big business. In recent years, it has become one of the fastest-growing genres in publishing.

Sunday 23rd June. 3.30pm

What does it look like when it’s not westernised? And how do writers from marginalised backgrounds navigate a space that’s still monopolised by white American men? Join authors Saara El-Arifi, N. E. Davenport and Tasha Suri online to find out.

Saara El-Arifi is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Final Strife and The Battle Drum, the first two instalments of The Ending Fire Trilogy inspired by her Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage. After a decade in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in African studies alongside her writing career. She lives in London.

Nia ‘N. E.’ Davenport is the author of The Blood Trials and its sequel, The Blood Gift. She studied Biological Sciences and Theatre Arts at the University of Southern California and has an MA in Secondary Education. When she isn’t writing, she teaches English and biology and advocates for diverse perspectives and protagonists in literature. She lives in Texas.

Tasha Suri is the award-winning author of The Books of Ambha duology, The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, What Souls Are Made Of, and Doctor Who: The Cradle. She has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and her debut novel, Empire of Sand, was named one of the 100 best fantasy books of all time by TIME magazine. She lives in London.

Chikodili Emelumadu  was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Awka, Nigeria. A product of not one but two Nigerian boarding schools, she went on to attend Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. She was the winner of the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019. Her work has also been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), a Nommo Award (2020) and the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020).