VALENTINA ACAVA MMAKA

An African Life

A U T H O R

Valentina Acava Mmaka was born in Rome from italian parents with Greek origins and raised in South Africa during apartheid regime. She started working as a free lance journalist reporting from different African countries. After her studies in Human Science she mooved to Kenya where she lived for several years experience after which she started her professional commitment as an intercultural mediator collaborating with schools, libraries, and organizations sharing her long African experience elaborating different educational projects for children from pre-school to high school.

She has taught in creative writing workshops for children and adults in Italy and Kenya. She now helds a writing workshop for adults within a program of Art Therapy and a Drama Workshop with immigrants. For children she teaches a variety of different workshops inspird by the ancient oral African tradition.

She is author of several books published in Italy: poetry, L'ottava nota (Prospettiva, Rome 2002); children, Il mondo a colori della famiglia BwanaVal (Kabiliana 2003); Jabuni: il mistero della città sommersa (EMI 2003); I nomi della pace.Amani (EMI 2004); drama I... immigrant woman (EMI 2004); fiction Cercando Lindiwe (Epoche 2007).

Her drama "I... immigrant woman to want to say to write" has won the "Prize of the Jury" at the IVth edition of Scena Madre Award for Drama. The three monologue play was staged in Italy, in France with the sponsorship of UNESCO , in Kenya and South Africa. Nowadays it is used as a complementary book in many multicultural university courses.

She works also as a translator from English to Italian, one of her latest translations is the award winning author Meshack Asare's "Sosu's call" - Il tamburo di Sosu .

She is the founder of the new non profit organization Soggetto Nomade based in Italy that promotes multicultural projects for schools and artistical projects sponsoring migrant artists.

She is invited in meeting, festivals, universities, schools, libraries to talk about her experience as a writer with a long life experience in Africa and as an intercultural mediator with different skills.

As a journalist she actually collaborates with the monthly literary Magazine Il Sottoscritto.

DEGREE THESIS ON HER WORK *

Valentina Acava Mmaka. La Poetica e il Teatro in Il Teatro Multietnico nell' era globale: prospettive pedagogiche interculturali. Di Eleonora Orrù, Dott.ssa in Scienze dell'Educazione Università degli Studi di Messina. Anno 2006.

La Letteratura della migrazione in Oltre la cittadinanza: comunità inoperose e nuovi intrusi. Di Ramona Parenzani. Corso di Laurea in Filosofia Università degli Studi di Urbino. Anno 2007

Anonime in terra straniera in Femminilità negata nel mondo. Di Daniela Spaletra. Accademia delle Belle Arti di Carrara. Anno 2007.

* known by the author