Born in Durban, Elleke Boehmer is Professor of World Literature in English at the University of Oxford, and Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Life Writing. She is a Fellow of the Australian Humanities Academy, of the Royal Society of Literature, and of the Royal Historical Society, and Extraordinary Professor in English at the University of Pretoria. Elleke is the author of six novels, including The Shouting in the Dark which won the Olive Schreiner Prize, and of two volumes of short stories, Sharmilla, and other Portraits (2010) and To the Volcano (2019), as well as a wide range of other publications, including Migrant Metaphors (1995, 2005), and Indian Arrivals (ESSE prizewinner 2016). In 2025-26, Elleke published a trio of books about the ‘far southern edge of the world’, including Southern Imagining (Princeton/Wits UP), and her last novel, Ice Shock.
This is an extra event following the word, Sound and Power workshop 2026 earlier in the day: https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/word-sound-and-power-the-lyrical-making-of-african/events/word-sound-and-power-workshop-2026.html .