Tsitsi Jaji was born at Nyadire Mission and raised in Harare. After completing her A-levels on a scholarship at Arundel, she moved to the U.S. to study piano and literature at Oberlin College. She earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University. She now teaches at Duke University.
Many of her poems are inspired by music and the experience of living in the diaspora. Jaji is the author of Carnaval from the collection Seven New Generation African Poets (African Poetry Book Fund/Slapering Hol, 2014) and Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and Pan-African Solidarity (Oxford University Press, 2014). Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Boston Review, Bitter Oleander, Runes Review, InTensions, Munyori Literary Journal, and the Center for Book Arts Broadside Poetry Series and elsewhere.
Bibliography
Poetry
Carnaval. Chapbook. Seven New Generation African Poets / Slapering Hol Press, Sleepy Hollow, 2014
Criticism
Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and Pan-African Solidarity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014
Links
Poem ‘Pierrot’ in The Boston Review
Three poems in InTensions
‘The Seat in Front of Me’ broadside printed by The Center for Book Arts
