Hannah Pool

Hannah Azieb Pool (born 1974) is a British–Eritrean writer and journalist. She was born near the town of Keren in Eritrea during the war for independence from Ethiopia. She is a former staff writer for The Guardian newspaper,[1] and writes regularly for national and international media. She is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women in the UK.[2]

Biography

Early life and education

At the age of six months, Pool was adopted by a British scholar working in Sudan. At first she was raised in Khartoum and then Norway, before finally settling in Manchester, England. She grew up believing that her genetic parents had died shortly after her birth.[3] She was educated at Liverpool University, where she studied Sociology.[4]

Career

After leaving university, Pool became a journalist on the Manchester Evening News and has written extensively for The Guardian newspaper, where for several years she wrote the fashion column "The New Black". However, at the age of 19 she had received a letter informing her that her genetic father and siblings were alive in Eritrea.[3] Her memoir, My Fathers' Daughter: A story of family and belonging, was published in 2005 and is an account of the journey she made back to Eritrea, aged 29, and her encounters with her family.[5]

Pool was a Senior Programmer of Contemporary Culture at the Southbank Centre, London. She currently works at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham as the Artistic Director/CEO.[6]

Bibliography
  • My Fathers' Daughter, London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 2005. ISBN 0241142601. ISBN 978-0241142608
  • Fashion Cities Africa (editor), University of Chicago Press, 2016. ISBN 978-1783206117[7]

References
  1. Hannah Pool, The Guardian profile page.
  2. Patrons Archived 13 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, SI Leeds Literary Prize.
  3. Akin Ojumu, "Ancestral voices" (review of My Fathers' Daughter), The Observer, 14 August 2005.
  4. Details of Pool's early life cited in her autobiography My Father's Daughter (2005).
  5. My Fathers' Daughter at Amazon Books.
  6. Welcome, Hannah Pool.
  7. "Fashion Cities Africa" Archived 14 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine (review), Intellect.
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