Culture | In your face

The rise of foul-mouthed female slam poets in Africa

One of the world’s most sexist countries is a hub for feminist poetry

A portrait of the slam poet Epiphanie-Nodjikoua-Dionrang, surrounded by phrases from her poems
Image: Jordan Andrew Carter/Sylvain Cherkaoui/Panos
|N’DJAMENA

In a restaurant in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, a woman in a white dress picks up a microphone as a keyboardist gently plays. “I wanted to silence these scars that reminded me how I was broken, bullied, beaten and cut open alive,” she begins. Épiphanie Nodjikoua Dionrang is not only trying to entertain the audience but also to express her rage.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “In your face”

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