Nick Makoha’s second collection, The New Carthaginians, was published by Penguin (Allen Lane) in February 2025. The book, a mythic and formally inventive long poem, explores flight, identity, and the 1976 Entebbe hijacking through three interlinked figures: Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Black Icarus, and “the Poet.” Combining poetry, myth, and history, Makoha builds a new diasporic epic that bridges personal memory and collective mythmaking.
Makoha’s recent work includes essays in Callaloo and Unbound Magazine, a portfolio of poems and prose edited for the Poetry Foundation, and performances across the UK and US, including headline events at the Coronet Theatre, Verve Festival and Hay Festival.