Pakistan-born poet and ‘Professor of Magic’ Sascha A. Akhtar will be reading and in conversation with Dr Anthony Joseph, Lecturer in Creative Writing, on 27 March.

Sascha A. Akhtar has crafted seven metaphysical poetry collections, a short story collection Of Necessity And Wanting embracing social realism and a volume comprising a biography and first time translations of Hijab Imtiazs' little known manuscript Adab-E-Zareen (2023 Oxford University Press). Akhtar has received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 A.K. Ramanujan Prize for book translations from South Asian languages into English awarded by the Association for Asian Studies. Akhtar is a Poetry School tutor and lecturer at the University of Greenwich. She performs internationally, some highlights include the Emirates Festival of Literature and Rotterdam Poetry Festival. Latest writings appear in Fugitives and Futurists, Deleuzine, Shuddhashar, Rivista, the Prototype Annual 4, Cut-Purse (Tangerine Press,), Of Myths and Mothers anthology and Lucy Writers Platform. Many (but not all) of her latest poetic works embrace many forms, including the moving image eschewing the 'book' or the 'page'. These works are often found in anthologies.Her debut collection The Grimoire of Grimalkin (2007) was ressiued by Prototype in 2024.

Dr Anthony Joseph is an award-winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic and musician. He is the author of five poetry collections and three novels. His 2022 collection Sonnets for Albert won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2022, described by judges as ‘A luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new lifePoetry, and shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Joseph’s 2018 novel Kitch was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award. As a musician, he has released nine critically acclaimed albums, and in 2020 received a Paul Hamblyn Foundation Composers Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Lecturer in Creative Writing and English at Kings College, London.