2018 highlights & gratitude is the attitude.

This is Alanna Lockward this past summer in Berlin.
It was the last evening of BE.BOP 2018: Coalitions facing White Innocence. 

today I received the very sad news that my friend and mentor, Alanna Lockward passed - 

I did not know that grief could make you feel nauseated. I was just in touch with her this past weekend and over the holidays. I was about to apply for a fellowship and she was one of the first people I thought about for a letter of recommendation, and in true Alanna style, she did not hesitate with a yes. I decided in the end not to apply, but we continued to chat over WhatsApp - with her last message to me telling me that she was in Haiti and how excited she was for this new year. 

Alanna was the brainchild behind Be.Bop -  Black Body politics that met every other year. These meetings were radical in the very fact that they were happening at all. Alanna was able to bring together decolonial thinkers and artists - Walter Mignolo, Tanja Ostojic, Artwell Cain, Simmi Dullay, Julia Roth, Robbie Shilliam, Patricia Kearsenhout, Teresea Maria Diaz Nerio, Patrice Naimbana, Lauar Judit Alegre, Augustus Casely-Hayford, Kjell Caminha, Quinsy Gario, Sasha Huber, Rolando Vasquez and Ovidiu Tichindelaeanu to name a few. I will write more about here when I am able to process this grief. 

this post is for her. 

This year was a great year for blackgirlonmars.  It started at as keynote speaker at The Royal Art Institute in Stockholm and ended as a speaker at TEDX Women in Odense.  Here is a list of some of the events I participated in this year:


TEDXOdense Women 2018; Odense, DK; December 1, 2018.

graphics by Jesper Oehlenschläger (founder of Gravisi-> https://gravisi.dk/)

• SAVVY Contemporary; Berlin, Germany; October 18th, 2018.

photo credit Bona Bell

• Oslo International Poetry Festival; Oslo, Norway, October 5-6, 2018.

• The Dancer, the Drum & the Serpent; Sorte Firkant; Copenhagen, DK; September 22nd, 2018.

• Black Women’s Sanctuary; Copenhagen, DK; September 14th, 2018.

• Movement, Belonging and Other Words;  Skånes konstförening, Sweden; September 8, 2018.

• Crossing Borders; Copenhagen, DK; September 6th, 2018.

• Krogerup Højskole author visit; Krogerup Højskole, Denmark; September 4th, 2018.

• BEBOP 2018: Coalitions facing white innocence; Berlin, Germany; June, 2018.

Thanks to Alanna Lockward, I got to sit on the same panel as the amazing
Dr. Gloria Wekker. 

• Waterstones Birmingham author visit; Birmingham, UK; June 5, 2018.

Corina Oprea, Artistic Director @ Konsthall C
Deborah Cowell, writer.

2018 was the year I felt my soul fall into place, a recalibration of sorts, an acceptance of what I've always suspected my destiny to be. This doesn't mean that it was without its challenges, but challenges are good - it reminds us of what we need to do to get into the flow of life.  This year I got to travel to Stockholm, Malmo, Birmingham (UK), London, Berlin, New York & Oslo among others.

I have so many things to be thankful for!   I "started" 2018 when,  in December 2017 I was invited to be keynote speaker for the "Decolonizing North" conference at The Royal Art Institute in Stockholm. I was able to travel with my friend, the writer Deborah Cowell who was visiting me at the time. I've known Debbie since the 90s from our publishing days, and I've always been in love with her mind, her humor and talent. She's been one of my greatest inspirations, partly due to her intellect and partly due to the courage she exhibits in the way she lives her life.

I began the keynote address with the song "Sky World" Bear Fox, performed by Teio with beautiful visuals provided by the amazing Supaman. One of the points in my book is what the world is missing is a connection to our Ancestors- and I think this video and song really captures this sentiment beautifully. Death is a funny thing - although my father has now been gone for 14 years - missing him doesn't get any easier. I've come to accept and embrace even, that there are moments in my life that I must carve out for him, to cry, to grieve. It will always be like this for as long as I live and that is a beautiful thing. It means he is still with me.




Death is a weird word anyway- I prefer pass or transition. In a way, I feel that the Ancestors are us perfected. Like I imagine my father, now my ancestor, as being him, but without the earthly shortcomings that plagued him.

Special thanks to Samuel Girma & Corina Oprea for the confidence and invite. A special big-up to my sister-in-arms, Deborah Cowell, who trooped all the way from New York to be spend some time with me in the cold, Danish winter.

Allison Mungo and I at one of my favorite spots in Berlin, YAAM -
where I go to hear Barney Millah spinning the latest Soca! 

Leipzig Book Fair 

In March I was invited to attend the Leipzig Book Fair in connection with my book "Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black Woman to her European Son" but got stuck in Berlin due to a snowstorm.  I had flown to Berlin from Copenhagen and was supposed to take the train to Leipzig but it would not be. The train did not budge. But Berlin is not a bad place to be stuck in - especially when you know a fellow Trini-Brooklyn sister who lives there. In about 20 minutes I was on my way to hers in Kreutzburg and had a much-needed embrace of home. I really needed that respite from it all - and Allison Mungo is the best person to administer loving doses of home.  Being around Allison was like being in Trinidad, and she reminded me of the very best of Trinidad and Tobago with her hospitality, Caribbean food and soca vibes. I met Allison through Jeannette Ehlers - who is her cousin. Thanks for the connection, Jeannette!

I want to thank Michaela Maria Mueller, Christiane Frohmann, Asal Darden and Orbanism for the support they have and continue to show for my work & for holding it down at the Leipzig Book Fair, where my book was still presented and folks had a opportunity to purchase an advance copy & to Fabrizia Bergamini Curti, who I met when I worked in administration at Copenhagen International School over 10 years ago,  and who came out to see me. And thank you so much Allison Mungo & Barney Millah- the best Reggae & Soca dj in Berlin-  for your generosity of spirit - which was just what the cultural doctor had ordered!

I would also like to thank Stephen Small for detailing the status of Black Europe and acknowledging the work that I do in his "20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe" which is part of the "Decolonizing the mind" series, published by Amrit. He writes: "In Denmark, Lesley-Ann Brown works through multiple media to articulate biography, memory and experience, personally and around issues of colonial amnesia and Blackness in Denmark...."

Here's to one of the most beautiful book covers I have ever seen!
Designed by Johnny Bull

And of course there was the publication of my book, "Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black Woman to her European Son"! I really like that book - like seriously. I feel a great sense of accomplishment in that I really did write the book that I had set out to do when I was a child - but I was always like, how am I going to get all these things to connect? Enter universe. Thank you Patrick Howell for you introducing me to Tariq Goddard and Repeater Books - a publisher that I am very proud to be a part of.  In November I flew over to London to meet them and the other Repeater authors and it was so inspiring and refreshing to be in a room full of people who just want to take this system down. I love it. My favorite point of that evening was walking the late night streets of London on a mild winter evening, marveling at trees.

The Repeater team!

Things go so fast sometimes. ... I wish to slow down.

Like in every sense of the word! As part of this meditation, I do always think about the turtle - the totem animal for the strength & grace that is imbued in moving slowly.  But I just haaaad to try this Trini spot I had read about in London - and there were a few hours before the party when I landed in London soooo...it was such a pleasure to walk into Limin' and be transported to Trinidad (okay, can you tell how much I'm missing Trinidad? It's been like TEN YEARS since I've been there. 2019 is the year I go home!) The food was delish! The host, Sham, adorable and I so enjoyed speaking to our waitress Christina about CLR James. The best part about the evening is that when I opened my mouth the words that fell out were toasted with the most beautiful Trini accent I had though I lost. 

bus' up shot & curry goat 

Rum punch

Trini shrine

Then of course, there was New York where I got to reconnect with my friends and family. My heart chakra opened up this summer, that was how much love I was surrounded by.


It's almost midnight this Monday January 7th - and I'm tired, sad, my head hurts. My heart hurts. I've been wanting to make this post for quite some time cause 2018 was good to me. Then I got news of Alanna's passing and I feel so nauseated. I had just reached out to her over the holidays because I wanted a letter of recommendation to which she without hesitation obliged. That was how she was, so accommodating and supporting of my and so many other's work. I had wanted to share my journey of my book and other future works with her so much.

This evening Jeannette Ehlers came over and we had tea and some dinner. I made beans and rice. I always make beans and rice when I'm in need of some comfort. We talked, cried and laughed. 
BE.BOP was no joke. She managed to gather some of the most radical minds in Black consciousness thought from all over the world in Berlin. Through her I met so many bright minds and creatives - 

Rest in power, sister. Rest in peace.

adieu.