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Oliver Twist
Rwandan-born storyteller who spent his childhood as a refugee in Malawi and later became an Australian stage performer and author, best known for the one-man play and memoir Jali.
Early life
Oliver Twist was about four years old when his family fled the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for Malawi, where they spent around fourteen years in exile — first in a refugee camp and later in the city. In 2014 the family was accepted through Australia’s refugee intake and settled in Ipswich, Queensland.
Jali
According to his publisher, Twist wrote a one-man play called Jali — a West African word for a storyteller — within a week of arriving in Australia, telling the story of his family’s journey. The play premiered in early 2021 and was later adapted into a memoir published by Penguin in 2023. He has toured Australia with the shows Jali and Griot and has appeared on the ABC and SBS.
Context
Twist is one of several people connected to Dzaleka who have published memoirs of displacement, alongside writers such as Njamba Koffi and Gabriel Ndayishimiye. His account is set partly in Malawi’s refugee system before his family’s resettlement.
References
Sources
- 1Oliver Twist — author profile
Penguin Books Australia
- 2Jali by Oliver Twist
Dzaleka Refugee Stories
Related entries
Culture
Jali
Oliver Twist's 2023 memoir about fleeing Rwanda, growing up in a refugee camp in Malawi, and later rebuilding his life and creative career in Australia.
People
Njamba Koffi
Congolese writer who grew up in Dzaleka and Mpaka camps, published the memoir Refuge-E at twenty through a UWC scholarship path, and went on to study and work in Canada.
People
Gabriel Ndayishimiye
Writer who grew up as a refugee in Dzaleka after fleeing the 1994 Rwandan genocide, author of the memoir Run Elvin! and founder of the refugee-focused publisher LivenBooks.
Place
Dzaleka Refugee Camp
A long-established refugee settlement in Dowa District, Malawi, opened in 1994 and now home to a large, multilingual community from the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa.
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