(1961 on) – Author and Activist

Born and raised in India, writer Arundhati Roy is best known for her novel The God of Small Things which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997. Roy not only writes extremely successful fiction and non-fiction, but she is also a political activist who is involved in fighting for justice in human rights and environmental causes. She has written political essays, speaks at rallies and marches, and is an inspirational advocate for the most vulnerable in society. 

‘There’s really no such thing as the “voiceless”. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.’

Lucy Hannah

Her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness bring together a sweeping yet intimate look at the past, present and future through the eyes of characters with seemingly little agency, but acute observation of the world around them. Her activism in relation to the frightening political developments in India and the rapid decline of the environment as expressed through her articles, her novels and talks are always informative and inspirational. 

Dominique Le Gendre

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACxkPzV6fLY

https://wave-network.org/inspiring-thursday-arundhati-roy/

(1942 on)

Barbara Jenkins was born in Belmont, Trinidad. She studied in Wales, returning to Trinidad in the early 1970s. After retiring as a secondary school geography teacher, she joined a writers’ group in 2007 and graduated from the MFA creative writing programme at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine in 2012. Her short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies and she has won several international prizes. Her debut collection of short stories, Sic Transit Wagon and Other Stories, was published in 2013, winning the 2014 Guyana Prize for Caribbean Literature for the best book of fiction. Published in 2018, De Rightest Place has been likened in setting to a Trinidadian Cheers. Her memoir, The Stranger Who Was Myself, is published in 2022 as she turns eighty.

I first came across Barbara’s work when she won the Wasafiri New Writing Prize in 2010 for life writing, and it was clear then that here was a talent to watch. She hasn’t disappointed!

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Jenkins

Photo by Arnaldo James

(1937-1986) – Author

Author Bessie Head was born in 1937 in South Africa in an asylum to a white mother declared ‘mentally insane’ because she had gotten pregnant by a black man (forbidden at the time according to South Africa’s Immorality Act). She had a turbulent childhood, suffering extreme prejudice as a mixed race child. She left South Africa for Botswana in 1964 and was technically in exile until she was granted citizenship by Botswana in 1979. Although Bessie’s novels started being published in her early thirties, real international success came in 1977 when The Collection of Treasures became the first short story collection to be published by a black South African woman. Bessie died at the age of forty-nine, but has since her death come to be seen as the exceptional literary talent and activism that she was. 

I first came across Bessie Head in the early 1990s and was immediately captured by her captivating storytelling about real human lives.

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bessie-amelia-head

Photo C/o https://khamaiiimem.org/gallery

Back to 50 Inspirational Women

(1965 on) – Creative Entrepreneur and Literature Activist

Joy Francis is co-founder and executive director of Words of Colour, co-founder of Digital Women UK and co-founder of the award-winning Synergi Collaborative Centre. She is longstanding activist for racial equality and cultural inclusion in the media, publishing and creative industries. She collaborated with the Media Diversity Institute to launch the UK’s first Diversity and the Media MA at the University of Westminster in 2012. She was the inaugural project manager for the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships (2016-18) and was appointed as the media liaison lead for the Hillsborough Inquests by leading civil rights law firm Birnberg Peirce. In 2019, Joy was selected for the UK’s first Museum of Colour’s People of Letters Digital Gallery as a literature influencer and was a Judge for the British Book Awards 2022. 

Meeting Joy Francis over a decade ago was a revelation. This firecracker of a PR expert has a long history of fighting for the empowerment of black and brown people within the media and publishing industries. She’s done this through her own creative entrepreneurship and by passing on her knowledge to others – which Speaking Volumes has also been a beneficiary of. More power to her.

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://wordsofcolour.co.uk/team/

https://rsliterature.org/fellow/joy-francis/

Photograph Adrianne McKenzie

(1906-1998) – Author

Born in South Shields in County Durham, Catherine Cookson had a very deprived childhood and left school at fourteen. She moved to Hastings as an adult to run her own laundry and married at the age of thirty-four, but had a series of miscarriages which led to a breakdown; it took her ten years to recover. She took up writing as a form of therapy and had her first novel published in 1950 when she was forty-four. By the time she died, Catherine had published over 100 books, with many being adapted for film and television. Catherine was also known for donating to the arts, medicine and services for children and young people, particularly in the Newcastle area, Catherine Cookson’s novels were always on my mother’s bookshelves and my sister and I started reading them in our early teens. We really enjoyed the sagas, the well-told, engrossing stories and romances which nonetheless never shied away from issues such as poverty, class divisions and prejudice. 

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Cookson

http://northeasthistorytour.blogspot.com/2011/04/catherine-cookson-1906-1998.html

(1966 on) – Journalist and Documentary Maker

Eliane Brum, born in Ijuí in southern Brazil, is a journalist, writer and documentary maker. She graduated from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in 1988 and has written for Zero Hora, Época and El País among others, winning over forty international awards for her reporting, among them the Premio Rey de España and the Inter-American Associated Press Award. Brum is the author of: a novel, Uma Duas, published in English as One Two; three feature news stories books: Coluna Prestes – O Avesso da Lenda, A Vida que Ninguém Vê (which was awarded in 2007 the Prêmio Jabuti) and O Olho da Rua; and A Menina Quebrada, a collection of columns written by her for Época magazine’s website. She is co-director of documentaries including Severina’s Story, Gretchen Filme Estrada, and Laerte-se. In October 2019, her new book The Collector of Leftover Souls was published. 
I first met Eliane in 2020 in London and heard of her commitment to defending the Amazon and the rights of the indigenous peoples. When I read The Collector of Leftover Souls, I was taken aback by the beauty and honesty of her writing, even when depicting the harshest of situations. She is a woman of principle and integrity.

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://rainforestjournalismfund.org/people/eliane-brum

(1963 on) – Journalist

From Mexico, Lydia Cacho is a fearless journalist and activist who has been attacked and whose life has been threatened on many occasions for exposing the crimes against and widespread oppression of women and girls in her native country. As well as her journalism and books about child pornography and paedophilia among other things, Lydia has founded a crisis centre and shelter for victims of sex crimes, gender-based violence and trafficking. She has been honoured by numerous international awards for her journalism and is still courageously ploughing this dangerous path of standing up for what is right. 

When I worked at International PEN in 2008, I met Lydia Cacho who was invited to be part of our annual literary festival. I was immediately struck by her verve for life and unfailing sense of humour, despite all that she has written about and experienced. A true role model.

Sharmilla Beezmohun

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Cacho

Read more: https://www.iwmf.org/community/lydia-cacho/

(1907-1977) – Photojournalist

Born in New York state, Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller’s career as a photojournalist took her from the fashion pages of Vogue to the front lines of World War Two. She is celebrated as one of the finest photographers of the twentieth century, producing powerful images challenging the objectification of women at home in America, as well as from the frontlines of World War Two in field hospitals and death camps. Not only a brilliant photographer, she was also a writer who in her later years wrote about art, artists and the many aspects of her life. 

’Being a good photojournalist is a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you.’

Lucy Hannah

Read more: https://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/lee-miller-feminist-icon

(1958-2006) – Journalist and Human Rights Activist

Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist and human rights activist who reported on political events in Russia, in particular on the Second Chechen War (1999–2005). For seven years she refused to give up reporting on the war, despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence. She was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. She was poisoned whilst flying from Moscow to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health. Russian readers’ main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper that featured critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs which was closed in March 2022 due to increased government censorship around the war in Ukraine. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published Putin’s Russia, a personal account of Russia for a Western readership. On 7 October 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats, an assassination that attracted international attention. In June 2014, five men were sentenced to prison for the murder, but it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing. A film about her life is currently being produced, starring Maxine Peake. 

Sarah Sanders

Read more: www.englishpen.org/posts/campaigns/justice-for-anna-politkovskaya/

(1928-2014) – Author

Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was an African-American memoirist, poet and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies and television shows spanning over fifty years. She received dozens of awards. She is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of seventeen and brought her international recognition and acclaim. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem ‘On the Pulse of Morning’ (1993) at the first inauguration of US President Bill Clinton. 

Maya Angelou’s writing and personal insights have been inspirational to me throughout my life. Her ability to overcome childhood abuse further inspired me growing up.

Lucy Davies

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou