Shailja Patel

Kenyan activist Shailja Patel is the author of Migritude, #1 Amazon poetry bestseller, currently taught in over 100 colleges and universities worldwide. Her poems have been translated into 17 languages. Honors include a Sundance Theatre Fellowship, a Voices of Our Nations poetry award, the Fanny-Ann Eddy Poetry Award, the Nordic Africa Institute African Writer Fellowship, and Jozi Book Fair Guest Writer Award. Patel is a founding member of Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice, a civil society coalition which works for an equitable democracy in Kenya. The African Women’s Development Fund named her one of Fifty Inspirational African Feminists. She is currently a Research Associate at the Five Colleges Women’s Studies Research Center, in Western Massachusetts.