Redefining Black Masculinity
What does it mean to be a Black man in contemporary Britain? And how can existing stereotypes regarding Black masculinity be broken down?
These are just some of the questions tackled in MANDEM – an unmissable collection of powerful essays, edited by award-winning artist Iggy London, that probe the importance of male role models, explore the sexual pressures placed on young heterosexual men, and ask what contemporary Black queerness actually looks like.
Contributors Iggy London and Ashley Hickson-Lovence will explore ideas of Black male thought and expression, how language is used to define or constrain male identity, and how contemporary conversations can transcend inherited ideas.
About the Authors
Iggy London
Iggy London is an award-winning filmmaker, artist and writer, whose work touches upon themes of identity, community, race and coming of age. Known for his distinctive style and telling gripping surreal stories, his work crosses many mediums from film to poetry.
Signed to the award-winning production company Iconoclast, he has directed films for Nowness, Love Magazine, Nike and Adidas to name a few. He is best known for his short film, Velvet, which went on to win Best Experimental Film at the Thunderdance Cannes Film Festival. Ranging from moving image to stills, his eclectic work features the likes of Clara Amfo, Flohio, Shaquille-Aaron Keith and JNR Williams.
Ashley Hickson-Lovence
Ashley Hickson-Lovence is a novelist and Lecturer of Creative Writing. His second novel Your Show was released with Faber in 2022 and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards. His third book, a young adult novel-in-verse called Wild East, is to be released in 2024. He is currently completing a new novel called About to Fall Apart.
About the Chair
Malika Booker
Malika Booker is a poetry Lecturer at Manchester University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage and the founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her first poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3:Your Family: Your Body (2017). A cave Canem Fellow, she won The Forward Poetry Prize for Best Single Poem (2020).
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