Nandi Jola is a poet, storyteller, playwright and creative writing facilitator. Born in South Africa, Nandi is well known in Northern Ireland and beyond for her work in the arts sector here.

It was a delight to talk to Nandi about her upcoming projects. She told me about how the pandemic had changed her working life and how she had worked through a hard time for everyone making a living in arts and culture.

Nandi presented her poetry and took part in Q&A sessions at this year’s Imagine Festival in March. She’ll be back at the festival in 2022 with an exhibition.

Nandi talks about her writing being “something between Belfast and Africa”. She says that she has learned things about South Africa from being in Northern Ireland. Her voice on life here has something to teach her readers. Nandi tells me about her play, the topically titled Partition, which engages with but seeks to move beyond the centenary theme. Commissioned as part of the Arts Council NI-supported Six Project, Partition was filmed in March 2021, and we talk about when we might get to see it.

Nandi’s poetry has been published in Fortnight this year, and Doire Press will publish her collection, Home Is Neither Here Nor There, in 2022. Nandi tells me about how the way she thinks about “home” has changed over time and how that is reflected in her collection, and about a new Poetry Jukebox-commissioned poem called “Black Irish” that will feature in the James Joyce programme of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. We also talk about her plans for an academic study of poetry after having practised it for many years.

Away from that private study and research, Nandi tells me about the importance to her of public performance and about her relationship with audiences, their responses to her work in different languages and her influences when it comes to reading and performing.

At the end of our chat, Nandi reads her poem “Crossing Borders”, which was commissioned by the Herstory and Jerusalem Centre for Women Parallel Peace Project as a conversation through poetry. The poem will feature on the Poetry Jukebox at the Crescent Arts Centre Belfast.

You can watch our discussion here, or listen on Spotify if you’re on the go.