Kalaf Epalanga - Writer in residence September 2022

T-YARD Writers Residency looks forward to welcoming Kalaf Epalanga as our first writer in residence during August 2022. Kalaf Epalanga is a writer and musician born in Benguela, Angola, in 1978, currently based in Berlin. Some people know him from the Europe Music Award-winning band, Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016), and through the columns he wrote for the Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola and the Brazilian literary magazine Quatro Cinco Um. He has released Love Stories for Coloured Children (2011), The Angolan who bought Lisbon (for halfprice) (2014), and Whites Can Dance Too (2017), his debut novel will be translated to English by Daniel Hahn and published by Faber in spring 2023.

Yara Nakahanda Monteiro - Writer in residence October 2022

We are beyond excited to introduce the luso-angolan writer, social critic, and speaker Yara Nakahanda Monteiro as our second writer for T-Yard Writers Residency. Yara Nakahanda Monteiro was born in Angola in 1979, but grew up in Portugal, due to the Angolan civil war. She has temporarily lived in several cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, Luanda, London, Copenhagen, and Athens. She has a background from studying screenwriting, contemporary art and graduated in human resources. Monteiro writes poetry and fiction and has also collaborated in the creation of scripts and screenplays for audiovisual arts. Her stories and poetry have been published in various magazines such as Granta and Revista Pessoa. She has become a regular guest speaker at universities on topics like feminism and Afro-European identities and narratives. In her own words: she is a great-great-granddaughter of slavery, a great-granddaughter of racial intermarriage, a granddaughter of independence and a daughter of the diaspora. Her poetry collection Memories Apparitions and Arrhythmias won the 2022 International Poetry Prize Glória de Sant’Anna. Her debut novel Essa dama bate bué! (2018) is translated in several languages. Monteiro is additionally a certified Shivananda Yoga teacher, Ayurveda therapist and a practitioner of the Marina Abramovic method.

During her time in Bergen Monteiro will share her insights in African literature in Portuguese language, and connect with Norwegian contemporary writers, publishers, and artists.


T-YARD Writers Residency is an initiative by designer and tailor T-Michael in collaboration with the contemporary art gallery Entrée, and Tekstallianse - a network for the literary field in Western Norway. We seek to foster exchange between international writers and the local literary field, and to mediate cultural events in Bergen to a larger international audience through creative and critical writing.

Check out: www.t-yard.com

T-YARD Writers Residency is kindly supported by Bergen Municipality.