Born in Cameroon, Clementine Burnley now lives and works between the U.K. and Germany. She has an MSc in Applied Linguistics from Manchester University and is a part-time, practice-based student at the Research Society for Process Oriented Psychotherapy – RSPOP, studying large group facilitation and conflict mediation. Her poems have been published in Ink, Sweat & Tears, Magma, and The Poetry Review. In 2021, she was the RSL Sky Award Winner for creative nonfiction. Her pamphlet was highly commended by Hannah Lowe, in the Poetry Business’ International Poetry and Pamphlet Competition 2023.

Clementine Burnley’s project resurrects stories of dispersion and resilience in her West African family, which are common to most diasporic communities. Its concern with personal, and political modes of negotiating national belonging are relevant to the current moment in history. In interlinked essays, she writes how it looks and feels to decolonise family and tries to rescue the interior lives of people about whom we know little. To do so, she draws on Saidiya Hartman’s critical inventions, on Nan Shepherd’s prose of place, and Achille.

Image: Cove Park