![]() | Inua Ellams was born in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria in 1984. He works as an internationally touring poet, playwright, performer. He has seven published books including Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales (Poetry, Flipped Eye: 2005), The 14th Tale (Play, Flipped Eye: 2009) - which was commissioned by the Battersea Arts Centre and awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival, before a sold out run at The National Theatre in London, England. His third theatre piece, Black T-Shirt Collection (Play, Oberon: 2012) also completed a sold out run at the National Theatre in 2012. His poems have been published in magazines and anthologies including: Generation Txt (Penned in the Margins: 2006), City State (Penned in the Margins: 2009), The Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt: 2011), The Shuffle Anthology (Shuffle: 2011), Chorus (MTV Books: 2012). Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars (Flipped Eye: 2011) is his second pamphlet of poetry and he is currently working on #Afterhours, his third pamphlet. Working also a graphic designer and visual artist, Inua’s work is imbibed with plentiful imagery - the starting point of his poems, and further, he describes the one-man shows he writes and performs as failed ‘poems’. |
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"The rules of the game at The Battle of Ideas makes beating about the bush impossible. When you are given 5 minutes to make your point, you either say something essential, or you reveal that you have nothing really to say. This eliminates 'the unbearable lightness' of speculation that haunts public debate."
Albena Azmanova, social philosopher, political commentator and activist



