Yarri Kamara

Speaking to the world from an African perspective

I am a writer of essays and poetry. The topics vary, the lens is always unusual. My essays have been published on platforms in a dozen countries, translated into French, German, Italian and Portuguese, and most surprisingly, debated on a Finnish blog. My writing has been honoured with a Villa Saint-Louis Ndar residency, a Goethe Institut African Writers residency and shortlisting by the Sevhage Literary Prize.

I am also a literary translator focused on bringing Francophone African literature to new readers. My translation of Monique Ilboudo’s So Distant From My Life was shortlisted for the US National Translation in Prose Award in 2023. I have been awarded a PEN-Heim Translation Grant and a Global Africa Translation Fellowship.

I am represented by the Elise Dillsworth agency.

My background

I was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Germany, and then spent two decades living in Burkina Faso. A former Jefferson Scholar, I graduated with high distinction in Economics and French Literature and Language from the University of Virginia in the US and hold an MA in International Affairs from Sciences Po Paris in France. A polymath by nature, in addition to being a writer and translator, I am also a cultural policy researcher (my LinkedIn page is dedicated to that side of me). I write only in English, but am fluent in French, Italian and Krio, and can reasonably read Spanish and Portuguese. I am currently based in Milan, Italy and travel frequently to the African continent.

Image credit: Anne Mimault