JJ Bola

JJ Bola is an established writer, poet and UNHCR Ambassador. His threepoetry collections –Elevate (2012), Daughter of the Sun (2014),and WORD (2015)– were all published in one definitive collection called Refuge(2018), which was readout in the British House of Commons during Refugee weekin 2018. He was one of Spread the Word’s Flight Associates 2017 and a Kit deWaal Scholar for the Birkbeck University MA in Creative Writing. As a formerrefugee, JJ Bola was invited to the Davos Economic Forum 2018 and held adiscussion with Cate Blanchett. His debut novel, No Place to Call Home,was first published in the UK in 2017, and in 2018 in North America. Hisnon-fiction book Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, which exposesmasculinity as a socially conditioned performance, was published in the UK in2019 and sold into five more languages worldwide. The Selfless Act ofBreathing is his second novel and it was published in 2021 in the UK and in2022 in the US. Translation rights have been sold into 6 languages so far. JJspeaks and performs both internationally and within the UK.

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