Presencia & Resistencia is a vibrant evening of readings, performance, and conversation celebrating British Latinx voices and Wasafiri 124, guest co-edited by Karina Lickorish Quinn and Leo Boix. Marking a landmark moment in the rise of Latinx literature in the UK, this event honours a movement reshaping the nation’s cultural landscape. Expect a dynamic fusion of voices and multilingual performance – featuring Juana Adcock, Leo Boix, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, and Monika Radojevic, chaired by Karina Lickorish Quinn – and a celebration of the interplay between Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Indigenous languages. The evening will also feature a special video presentation of Peruvian poet Raúl Cisneros reading in Quechua.
Join us at the British Library for an evening of sound, spirit, and connection – a living expression of presencia and resistencia, and of Wasafiri’s ongoing commitment to voices that cross borders and transform the literary map.
British Latinx (Latine/Latin American) writers are authors and poets in the UK with cultural or ancestral roots in Latin America. They may be first-, second- or third-generation and write in English, Spanish, Portuguese or Indigenous languages of Abya Yala. Their identities vary widely – from Latin American writers living in Britain to those with hybrid or British Latinx identities. All are recognised, regardless of language or how they choose to self-identify.
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Juana Adcock
Juana Adcock is a poet, translator and editor writing in both English and Spanish.
Credit: Dirk Skiba
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She is the author of five poetry collections, including I Sugar the Bones (Out-Spoken Press, 2024), which was shortlisted for the 2025 Forward Prize for Best Collection and the Saltire Book Award. She is co-editor of the anthology Temporary Archives: Poetry by women of Latin America (Arc, 2022) and has translated Laura Wittner’s Translation of the Route (Bloodaxe/PTC, 2024) and Hubert Mati-uwaa’s The Dogs Dreamt, both of which received PEN Translates awards.
Leo Boix
Leo Boix is a bilingual Latinx poet, born in Argentina and based in London.
Credit: Naomi Woodis
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His second English collection, Southernmost: Sonnets (Chatto & Windus, 2025), was shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry. His debut English collection, Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (Chatto & Windus, 2021), was a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice and named one of The Guardian’s top five poetry books of the year. Boix is the editor and lead translator of the ground-breaking Hemisferio Cuir: An Anthology of Young Queer Poetry (Fourteen Publishing). A fellow of The Complete Works program, he co-directs Un Nuevo Sol, nurturing Latinx writers in the UK. Boix was awarded the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize, the Keats-Shelley Prize, and a PEN Award.
Raúl Cisneros
Raúl Cisneros comes from the peasant community of Pariamarca, in Ayacucho Peru; where he was a farmer, cattle herder, and baker.
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Then he studied to be a language and literature teacher at the San Cristobal de Huamanga National University. Founder and member of the Estirpe de Ayacucho Scenic Creation Collective, actor, oral narrator, musician. He is co-author with Sara Paredes Mansilla of the book: Kametsa Asaike. The Performance Arts For Good Community Living in the Original Peoples of the Amazon, which won the Infoartes 2017 prize from the Ministry of Culture of Peru.
Yara Rodrigues Fowler
Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a writer from South London.
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Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019 and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Desmond Elliot Prize, and Yara was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019. Yara’s second novel, there are more things, was published in 2022 and nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and Goldsmiths Prize. It was one of the Sunday Times, BBC Culture and New Statesman’s books of the Year. In 2023, Yara was chosen as one of Granta's 'Best Young British Novelists' in their once-a-decade list.
Constantina Higbee
Constantina Higbee comes from Peru and now lives in London.
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Her mother language is Quechua and she also speaks Spanish and English. She works with the Rimanakuy community to teach the Quechua language and Peruvian culture in London. She teaches Quechua in the classroom and online and runs a Peruvian dance group.
Monika Radojevic
Monika Radojevic is a London-born poet, performer and writer, and the youngest winner of the Merky Books New Writers ’Prize.
Credit: Barnaby Boulton
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Her writing is a continuous exploration of the messiness of power dynamics. Her dual Brazilian-Montenegrin heritage serves as both inspiration and guidance. Her latest short story collection, A Beautiful Lack of Conse-quence, was released in March 2025 and her debut novel, Strangerland will be released in early 2026.
Karina Lickorish Quinn
Karina Lickorish Quinn is a Peruvian-British writer and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London.
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Her works include The Dust Never Settles (Oneworld, 2021), The House of Skin (Stanchion, 2023) and The River Dies Quietly (Oneworld, forthcoming 2027). Karina is working on her next book with an Arts Council England grant.
About Wasafiri
Wasafiri is the UK’s leading magazine for international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984 by Susheila Nasta, it has championed global voices and perspectives and published major writers including Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Bernardine Evaristo and Abdulrazak Gurnah amongst others. Its name stems from the Kiswahili word for ‘travellers’, which reflects the magazine’s longstanding engagement with cultural travelling and its continuing commitment to extending the established boundaries of literary culture. The magazine draws widely across modern culture and the arts, publishing an informed mix of fiction, poetry, interviews, essays and reviews – opening spaces for reading and writing across borders and imagining diverse possibilities for belonging.
The Wasafiri archive is held at the British Library, preserving its pioneering legacy and supporting new research into global literature and publishing.
Venue and bar opening times
This is an in-person only event in the British Library Knowledge Centre.
The Knowledge Centre and bar open from 18.00.
Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. If you have specific access requirements please email customer@bl.uk
Concessions
There are a range of concessions available. These include discounts for British Library Members, Young Persons (16–25s), and visitors on Universal/Pension Credit and free entry for carers.