Inua Ellams

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a graphic designer at White Space Creative Agency. He facilitates workshops in creative writing where he explores reoccurring themes in his work – Identity, Displacement and Destiny – in accessible, enjoyable ways for participants of all ages and backgrounds.
His creative work has been recognised with a number of awards: The Live Canon International Poetry Prize, The Arts Council of England Award, a Wellcome Trust Award, twice shortlisted for the Brunel Prize for African Poetry, longlisted the Alfred Fagan Award, Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2009 and the Liberty Human Rights Award. Inua has been appointed Tower of London’s official poet for 2018 and he will curate a series of poetry, spoken word and performance events called Confessions at The Tower, mixing historic records with real confessions. He is currently shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry
Inua has been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Tate Modern, Louis Vuitton, Chris Ofili, BBC Radio & Television. His first three pamphlets of poetry ‘Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales’ and ‘Candy Coated Unicorn and Converse’ were published by Flipped Eye and ‘The Wire-Headed Heathen’ by Akashic Books. Several plays including the critically acclaimed Black T-shirt Collection and award-winning The 14th Tale are published by Oberon. In 2005, he founded the Midnight Run – an an arts-filled, night-time, playful, walking, urban movement that attempts to reconnect inner city lives with inner city spaces.