Each year, Cove Park hosts at least one international writer on a residency of up to twelve weeks. This year the residencies are between four and six weeks long and are for professional artists in mid-career  to develop their own projects within the supportive interdisciplinary environment of Cove Park. Mariama’s Khan’s residency also brings together two valuable partnerships: one with Creative Scotland’s Creative Futures and the Writers of the African Commonwealth series, and another with the Southbank Centre’s Olympic Poetry Parnassus Project. Mariama will be taking part in Poetry Parnassus after her residency with us.

Mariama Khan was born in Gambia in 1977. Her first collection of poems, Futa Toro, was published in 2003. In 2004, she co-published another volume named Juffureh: kissing you with hurting lips, with Bamba Khan, her brother. They also co-authored Proverbs of the Senegambia.  Mariama also works as an African film producer and director. She set up a non-profit organization called Documentary Film Initiative (DFI), which produces socially-engaged media. Her documentary films have been screened in a number of countries around the world. One of her films, Sutura, won a prize in the 2008 United Nations Population Fund Agency’s (UNFPA) Pan-African Film Festival. She has directed and produced five films so far.

Mariama is one of the poets taking part in the Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus event and her residency brings three organisations together in partnership: Cove Park, the Southbank Centre and Creative Futures. While on residency with us, she will be giving a podcast to the Scottish Poetry Library.