Rethabile Masilo is a Mosotho poet who has lived in France for more than 30 years. He left Lesotho as a refugee in 1981, eventually ending up in the USA where he continued his biology studies. He then moved to France in 1987.
Rethabile has published four books of poetry and two poetry anthologies. In 2014 his poem ‘Swimming’ from the book Waslap won the Dalro First Prize in poetry, as well as the Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry in Periodicals a year later. The poem had first appeared in the magazine New Coin, Vol. 49, Number 1, in June 2013.
In 2016 his second volume Waslap, published by The Onslaught Press, was awarded the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. That same year in October he was invited to participate in the 20th Poetry Africa Festival in Durban, and in June 2019 in the International Poetry Festival of Medellin.
Masilo’s books are Things that are silent (Pindrop Press, 2012), Waslap (The Onslaught Press, 2015), Letter to country (Canopic Publishing, 2016), and Ooaling (The Onslaught Press, 2018). He blogs at Poéfrika (http://poefrika.blogspot.com) and co-edits Canopic Jar
(https://www.canopicpublishing.com/blog) with the writer Phil Rice. He is currently writing poems toward a fifth volume.
About SpokenWord Paris
SpokenWord Paris is one pole of a nomadic tribe of people who love poetry, writing and song. A home for creatives and lost anglophones. They do an open mic night called SpokenWord every Monday at the Chat Noir and an allied writers’ workshop every Sunday.