2026 Macondo & Literature Live! Turkana Cohort Announced
The Macondo Book Society (Kenya) and Literature Live! (India) are pleased to announce the selection of four poets for the 2026 Turkana Nature Poetry Retreat, scheduled for May 2026 at the historic “Cradle of Humankind” in Northern Kenya. Frank Njugi and Evalyn Wanjiru Githina (Kenya) alongside Amulya Bhat and Mesak Takhelmayum (India), were selected from a pool of 162 applicants. The cohort will spend eight days at the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) Turkwel Campus in Turkana County, immersed in a landscape that defines our shared origins. Upon return to Nairobi, the poets will present their works during a public event on May 23rd.
Anja Bengelstorff, Co-founder of the Macondo Book Society, traces the retreat’s origins to a conversation at the 4th Macondo Literary Festival, “Voices of Nature: Writing the Non-Human World,” led by Indian novelist Shubhangi Swarup and Kenyan entomologist Dr. Dino Martins, director at TBI. “Their discussion struck a deep chord. It raised the question: Could poetry and science, long seen as separate realms, co-create meaning in a way that neither could alone? It was the continuation of a bold idea: that science and poetry, far from being opposed, are both languages of wonder, each capable of revealing something essential about the world we live in,” says Bengelstorff.
Now in its second year, the retreat has partnered with Literature Live!, which has hosted the Mumbai LitFest for the past 16 years. Quasar Thakore Padamsee, Co-Director of Literature Live!, says this project is more than a creative collaboration; it is a project that reflects the growing need to rethink humanity’s relationship with the natural world. “This is the only planet we've got. It's important for us to take care of it, and recognise our little bio-sphere as a living breathing entity. Poetry has the ability to capture the sublime, the unsaid, and talk about it with nuance. This is something that is greatly lacking in our everyday discourse. By encouraging poets to place the natural world at the centre of their work, hopefully we impact people to make the natural world the centre of their lives,” says Padamsee.
As part of the stay in Turkana, the selected poets will be guided by TBI researchers at the forefront of research on human prehistory and biological evolution, and modern human culture and diversity. Following the retreat, the four poets will travel to Nairobi for a public showcase hosted by the Macondo Book Society. This gathering will allow them to present their work and engage with poets from Kenya., This invitation is extended in particular to poets who work at the intersection of nature, science and history. Padamsee, who has been curating cross-cultural creative projects in India, notes that such partnerships are vital in helping writers find inspiration beyond their own local contexts. “Art and imagination is not governed by geographical boundaries. Cross-cultural partnerships are vital because they allow us to see how another culture dreams and behaves. It allows writers to transcend their own experiences and literary canons.
The Arts across the world are under-resourced, but have an incredibly positive energy. Cross cultural partnerships allow us to maximise this energy enabling writers and audiences alike to experience different narratives that they would otherwise not have had access to. Submissions were selected by a panel of four jurists: Anja Bengelstorff and Ngwatilo Mawiyoo for Kenya, and Reena Agrawal and Shubhangi Swarup for India. This is the second edition of the retreat, following a successful inaugural collaboration between the Macondo Book Society and the Scottish Poetry Library (Edinburgh, UK):
Meet the poets
Evalyn Wanjiru Githina (Kenya)
Evalyn Wanjiru Githina is a poet, writer and creative visionary passionate about storytelling in all its forms. She has worked as Editor for AIM Magazine Minnesota, Sauti Project under Al Jazeera and Pawa 254.Currently, she hosts the Diva On A Mission podcast, and has been featured by Mvua Press and Shumba Literary Magazine amongst others. She is the author of Timelines, a collection of poems that captures the essence of time, memory, and identity.
Frank Njugi (Kenya)
Frank Njugi is a writer, poet, and journalist from Naivasha, Kenya. His accolades include a nomination for the 2023 Pushcart Prize and recognition as a runner-up in the 2023 ILS–Fence Fellowship. He has also been awarded a Sevhage-Agema Founder’s Prize and the Jay Lit Prize for Nonfiction, and was shortlisted for the 2025 Rajat Neogy Editorial Fellowship. Njugi is an alumnus of the Nairobi Writing Academy, a 2024 African Writers Trust Residency Fellow, and a 2024 and 2025 International Literary Seminar Fellow. He is also the author of the poetry chapbook Ujana (INKSPIRED, 2024).
Amulya Bhat (India)
Amulya is a writer and translator based in Bengaluru, who works in both Kannada and English languages. She is the winner of ANK Memorial Prize for young Kannada Writers (2012), the Barbra Naidu Prize for the Personal Essay (2018) and the Toto Funds the Arts (TFA) Award for Creative Writing in both English and Kannada (2021). Her children’s play exploring themes of climate change and ecology, 'Remember, Remember', was published by Eklavya Books in 2022, as part of Think Arts’ Play/Write Residency.
Mesak Takhelmayum (India)
Mesak Takhelmayum is a poet, educator, translator and artist from the state of Manipur in Northeastern India. Their works have appeared in “On the Brink of Belief : Queer Writing from South Asia”, “The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City” and various magazines. Mesak is a mentor to young Queer-Trans poets in Manipur, and is currently running a healing through literature project with AMaNA Trust, a prominent Nupi Maanbi collective. Mesak is passionately working on a collection of poems based on each of the city of Imphal’s boroughs in an attempt to rekindle the valuable process of creation in a conflict torn landscape.
Turkana Nature Poetry Retreat landscapes 2025