Ade Solanke

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Emerson College

Ade Solanke is an award-winning British-Nigerian playwright, screenwriter, and academic. She is the artistic director of Spora Stories, creating plays and films about the African diaspora. She has a BA Hons in English Literature from the University of Sheffield and received their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016. She also hs an MFA in Film from the University of Southern California where she was a Fulbright Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa International Scholar, and Association of American Women Scholar. Her acclaimed debut play, 'Pandora's Box',  won a Best New Play nomination in the Off West End Theatre Awards and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa’s biggest literary award.

Her latest play, The Court Must Have a Queen, premiered at Hampton Court Palace. A former journalist, Ade has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, The Voice and BBC Radio 4. With literature, theatre and film colleagues at Emerson, she will research and develop dramatic material for Phillis in London, her project exploring Phillis Wheatley, the African-American enslaved teenage prodigy who in 1773 published the first book in English by an African. In her free time, Ade is a keen walker and plans to sample the best of  New England's 'leaf-peeping'.