Malika Lueen Ndlovu is a Durban
- born poet, playwright, performer arts project manager and mother of
three, with a wide range of experience in the Arts and Arts Management
arenas. She has four of her own poetry anthologies, besides her work
being featured in several local and international publications. Her
poetry books include Born in Africa But and Womb to World:
A Labour of Love, Truth is both Spirit and Flesh, which includes
a selection of South African tribute poems entitled Let’s Not Wait
To Praise You When You’re Dead and her poetic memoir
Invisible Earthquake: a Woman’s Journal through Stillbirth published
by Modjaji Books in March 2009, marking the beginning of her
awareness-raising campaign on this underexposed aspect of many women’s
experience across the globe.
Malika is a founder-member of Cape Town-based
women writers' collective WEAVE, co-editor of their multi-genre anthology
WEAVE’s Ink @ Boiling Point: A selection of 21st Century Black Women’s
writing from the Southern Tip of Africa.
In 2004 Malika joined The Mothertongue Project, a women performing
artists, writers and visual artists collective, scripting for their
highly successful Grahamstown Festival 2004 production - Uhambo! :
Pieces of a Dream. She has also initiated the And The Word Was
Woman Ensemble of 14 local performance poets, bringing together
established Cape Town writers and fresh writing talents. Malika was
a featured poet at the Poetry Africa 2005
International Festival, hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts at the
University of Kwa Zulu Natal-Durban. In August 2006 she returned to
her hometown to by invitation of The Playhouse Company to restage her
play A Coloured Place written in 1996, in celebration of the
10th anniversary SA Woman’s Arts
Festival. In September Malika performed extracts of Words Pave
the Way, an autobiographical journey through her poetry at the
Darling Festival Trusts 2006 Voorkamer Festival. In March
2007 as part of the Cape Town Festival Malika, in collaboration with
well-known singer-songwriters Tina Schouw and Ernestine Deane restaged
their highly successful production Womantide, showcasing their
original poetry, songs and music. They continue to perform for small
scale and hi profile events around the country. For Human Rights Day
21st March 2007, Malika conceived and facilitated Wordwise:
A Celebration of World Poetry Day - inspired by this 1999 UNESCO
global initiative and hosted at Iziko Museums’ Slave Lodge in collaboration
with the Cape Town City Council.
In January 2008 Malika became co-curator
of the Spier Poetry Exchange – a highly successful 5-day international
poetry festival produced by the Africa Centre, an NPO dedicated
to supporting and celebrating the rich history and contemporary practice
of African arts and culture. This expanded poetry project now renamed Badilisha! – Poetry X-Change
launched its annual calendar of events on Heritage Day 24 September
2008 and in May 2009 culminated in a 3 day international poetry Festival
held in central Cape Town. Malika’s latest play Sister Breyani
will had its world premier at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees
2009 before a highly successful run at the Baxter Theatre
in Cape Town in May. She will tour extracts of her play A Coloured
Place, to Chicago in April 2010.
Continuing to operate as an independent artist under the brand New Moon Ventures, Malika is dedicated to creating indigenous, multi-media and collaborative works in line with her personal motto "healing through creativity."