Jolyn Phillips
(South Africa, 1992) is a writer, poet, composer, singer and activist. Her 2016 debut collection of short stories, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, received critical praise, was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize for best debut, and won the NIHSS Prize for best fiction. Phillips herself adapted the stories for the stage. In 2017 she published Radbraak, a collection of poetry in Afrikaans, which won the 2018 UJ Prize for best debut and earned a nomination for the Elizabeth Eybers Prize. She set some of these stories to music. More of her poems and short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is currently graduating from the University of the Western Cape with a PhD in creative writing and teaching African literature at the University of Johannesburg.
Past events
Free at Last: A Day of Decolonised Life
Are these fairy tales or is this finally a decolonised world? Writers Unlimited asked eight authors to sum up a day of colonisation-free existence in poetry or prose. Eight days of liberation, each in their own way.
I Have No Other Country than this Country
Writing in Afrikaans and English: a conversation about South Africa, generational differences, and the future - plus poetry.
Letters from Overseas
Nine authors present a letter they wrote to someone in a (former) colony, as an ode to the enslaved Wilhelmina, who sent a never-delivered but recently opened letter to her former master in 1795.
