Tawhida Tanya Evanson

Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, novelist, artist and Ashiq whose work blends orality, music and image within currents of African diaspora, Sufi mysticism, and decolonial praxis. Born and based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal with roots in Antigua, West Indies, her award-winning 2021 novel Book of Wings and its French companion Livre des ailes join her poetry collections Nouveau Griot and Bothism. A longstanding voice in spoken word, film and sound, her multi-award-winning Afrofuturist concert film CYANO SUN SUITE (2024) continues to cross continents, as does her performance practice. Formerly director of Banff Centre Spoken Word and president of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, Evanson is 2025 Poet Ambassador in Residence at the League of Canadian Poets. She moonlights as a whirling dervish.