Rising Stars

Elaine Castillo, Michael Donkor & Olumide Popoola

  • 8
  • Oct

2018

Monday

7.00pm

Head and shoulders shot of author Elaine Castillo, seated in a chair, smiling and wearing a red shirt


Where do you find home? In Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart, it’s in food, community, friendship and love, as Hero rebuilds her life in a new country. In Michael Donkor’s cross-continental Hold, it’s in an unexpected city and a surprising kinship, as Ghanian Belinda moves to London to impose order on sullen and wayward Amma. While for Karl and Abu, in Olumide Popoola’s When We Speak of Nothing, it’s in learning who you are and finding acceptance – whether that’s in the streets of London or Port Harcourt. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Elaine Castillo is a Filipina American, who has been longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Award. Born in London to Ghanian parents, Michael Donkor is one of the Observer’s New Faces of Fiction 2018. A Nigerian German writer based in London, Olumide Popoola has published a novella, play and poetry, and now her debut novel. Hosted by MLF's Naomi Frisby.