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Dr. Wesley Paul Macheso

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Literary Studies

Research Areas

Postcolonial Literature; Queer/Trans African Studies; Gender and Sexuality; Film Studies; Popular Culture,

Profile

Wesley Paul Macheso is an Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Malawi. He holds a PhD (English Studies) from Stellenbosch University. His research interests are in African literature, queer African studies, gender and sexuality, film studies, and popular culture. His article, “Vulnerability and the (im)possibilities of Becoming: Transgenderism in Contemporary South African Life Writing”, was an Honorable Mention for the Queer African Studies Association (QASA) Prize (2022), for Best Published Scholarly Essay by a Junior Scholar. He is an Honorary Fellow in writing of the University of Iowa (USA) and a Research Fellow at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). He was longlisted for the Short Story Day Africa Prize in 2015 and won the Peer Gynt Literary Award for his children’s book, Akuzike and the Gods (2017). His collection of poetry, A Masquerade of Spirits was published in 2020. He is an alumnus of the International Writing Program (IWP), the African Writers' Trust (AWT) Editing and Publishing Workshop, and the Morland Creative Writing Workshop. He was also shortlisted for the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship in 2020, 2022, 2023, and in 2025.

Publications

  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley, P. “Gender, Sexuality and Citizenship: Reflections on African Diasporic Queer Imaginaries.” (Accepted for publication in the journal Gender Questions (2022)). (2022)
    https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-8457/10179
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2021). “Lives in Motion: Theorising Mobility in Contemporary Queer African Cinema”, Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies. (2021)
    https://doi.org/10.1080/23277408.2021.1894056
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2021). “Fiction as Prosthesis: Reading the Contemporary African Queer Short Story”, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. 58(2): 8-17. (2021)
    https://doi.org/10.17159/tl.v.58i2.8633
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2021), “Vulnerability and the (im)possibilities of Becoming: Transgenderism in Contemporary South African Life Writing”, African Identities. 19(4): 473-486. (2021)
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725843.2020.1803044
  • Conference Papers
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2021). “Gender and the Limits to Citizenship: Reflections on African Diasporic Queer Imaginaries”. Paper presented at a seminar series titled “Gender Identity and Embodiment: Exploring Sexual Representations”, hosted by the Department of English Studies, University of South Africa, September, 2021. (2021)
  • Book
    Macheso, Wesley. (2020). A Masquerade of Spirits. Balaka, Montfort Press. (2020)
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley. (2018), “The Obscure Object? Gender Identity and the Intersex Anatomy in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel”, SibĂ©al Feminist and Gender Studies Network Journal, Issue 3: Revolutionary Genders, Summer 2018, pp. 28-48. (2018)
    https://issuu.com/sibealnetworkjournal/docs/journalthreerevolutionarygenders
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2017), “The Problem with the Traveller’s Gaze: Images of the Dark Continent in Paul Theroux’s The Lower River”, Journal of Humanities, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 45-61. (2017)
    https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jh/article/view/165526
  • Book
    Macheso, Wesley. (2017). Akuzike and the Gods. Blantyre: Malawi Writers Union. (2017)
  • Conference Papers
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2017). “‘The Abnormal’ as a Fallacy of Medicine in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and Villant Jana’s Alufeyo”. Paper presented at a conference titled “Medical Humanities in an African Context”, hosted by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Malawi, Zomba, August, 2017. (2017)
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley. (2016), “Stigma, compulsory able-bodiedness, and queer existence in Villant Jana’s Alufeyo: A crip theory analysis”, Journal of Development and Communication Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 469-476. (2016)
    https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jdcs/article/view/138170
  • Journal Article
    Macheso, Wesley. (2015), “Dystopia and the Irony of Exile: Narrating Post-Independence Disillusionment in Teju Cole’s Every Day is for the Thief”, GNOSIS: An International Journal of English Language and Literature, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 107-114. (2015)
  • Book Chapters
    Macheso, Wesley. (2015). “This Land is Mine”, in Mulgrew, N. & Szczureck, K. eds. Water: New Short Fiction from Africa, Cape Town: Short Story Day Africa. (2015)
  • Conference Papers
    Macheso, Wesley, P. (2014). “Beyond Translation: The Employment of Oral Narratives in Selected Malawian Plays”. Paper presented at a conference titled “Orature and its Place in Malawian Literature”, co-hosted by the Department of Languages and Literature, Mzuzu University, and the Department of English and Humanities, Birbeck College, University of London, Mzuzu, 29-31st July 2014. (2014)
  • Book Chapters
    Macheso, Wesley. (2020). “‘Tears on Canvas’, ‘Nausea’, and ‘This Christmas’”, in Otiono, N. & Umezurike, U. eds. Wreaths for a Wayfarer: An Anthology of Poems in Honour of Pius Adesanmi (1972-2019), Ottawa: Daraja Press. ()