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Hailed as a \u201cblistering new literary voice\u201d, Minna Salami is a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish writer and social critic, and the founder of the multiple award-winning blog, MsAfropolitan, which connects feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective.\nTraci talks with Minna following the publication of her new book, Sensuous Knowledge, which was described by Bernadine Evaristo as \u201cintellectual soul food\u201d. Their conversation is a deep, rich and wonderful romp through Minna\u2019s muti-faceted identity and how her experiences have shaped her writings on Black feminism, Minna\u2019s fresh cultural insights and the need to create space for growth and grappling in today\u2019s world.\n\xa0\nEpisode Timeline\n[00:09] Intro\xa0\n[00:57] Meet Minna\n[2:38] The five(!) languages Minna speaks, and how they have shaped the way she thinks of Black feminism\xa0\n[10:55] how Blackness is tied to the African American experience\n[14:50] the impact Minna wants to create through her writing\n[20:26] Making room for growth and grappling\n[26:00] Minna\u2019s intuitive writing process\n[43:12] Having ownership of your inner world\n[45:56] Closing\n[46:35] Outro\nResources Mentioned\nSensuous Knowledge (Minna\u2019s book)\xa0\nStandout Quotes\n\u201cBlackness right now is very much tied to the African American experience and the kind of definitions of Blackness as African Americans. It formulates them. And the way that Blackness would be formulated in a kind of Diasporic sensibility outside of America and in the African continent certainly overlaps and is connected. There would be context, sort of dialectic contexts that are siblings, but there are also differences.\u201d (Minna)\n\u201cI think the closest analogy to how I feel when I'm writing is a bit like an archaeologist might feel when they're trying to find some very specific object and they have to sort of excavate everything that's in the way and remove obstacles in order to gain the kind of clarity of how they might find their objects.\u201d (Minna)\n\u201ca personal process of growth is of course completely tied to a collective process of growth.\u201d (Minna)\n\u201cI also started the blog out of frustration and rage, maybe even because of the state of exclusion that Black women face, especially in the ideas world, which is a world that I very much see myself as contributing to, as well as the kind of feminist theory and feminist activism world.\u201d (Minna)\n\u201cI think there's this invitation that how we move from our unconscious bias is that we do have to begin to learn a different kind of knowledge and we have to make it a regular practice where we're listening to more stories, the land, people from different viewpoints, our own bodies.\u201d (Traci)\n\u201c...is wanting to think up or to conjure a way of knowing that is simultaneously utopian and pragmatic. There's a lot of radical ideas in the world, many of which I am really inspired by and thankful for but many that I also can feel are impractical and I sometimes approach more as poems or something to kind of plant a seed of something.\u201d (Minna)\n\u201cI will say that the inner world and the things that you choose to pay attention to, things that you choose to be preoccupied with. Those are the spaces which have not been taken over\u2026 And so it's very important, it's incredibly important that you cater to that space and that you have ownership of that space. And it's by no means a space that isn't full of complex feelings. It's that inner world where joy resides, but also sorrow and suffering. But it's the space you own.\u201d (Minna)\n\xa0\n\xa0\nConnect:\nFind | Sidewalk Talk\xa0\nAt sidewalk-talk.org\nOn Instagram: @sidewalktalkorg\nOn Twitter: @sidewalktalkorg\n\xa0\nFind | Traci Ruble\nAt Traciruble.com\nOn Instagram: @TraciRubleMFT\nOn Twitter: @TraciRubleMFT\nOn Facebook: @TraciRubleMFT\n\xa0\nFind | Minna Salami\nAt https://msafropolitan.com/\xa0\nOn Instagram: @minnasalami_\xa0\n\xa0\nSUBSCRIBE TO THIS PODCAST\nOn Apple Podcasts\nOn Google Podcasts\nOn Spotify