Ije: An Immigrant’s Voyage into Prince Edward Island Life takes its meaning from the Igbo word for journey, and spotlights the narratives of immigrants to Prince Edward Island, shining light on their individual experiences. This collection of personal reflections, interviews, photo essays, and visual works of art includes themes of belonging, imposed and realized identities, cultural traditions, culinary symbols, living the contradictions of social norms. From chefs to hairdressers, academics to entrepreneurs, Ije encompasses the resilience of a people inspired to innovate their own community-driven solutions.

Elizabeth Iwunwa's profile page

Gessy Robin Shumbusho's profile page

Ilona Daniel's profile page

Elizabeth Iwunwa was born in 1997 in Lagos, Nigeria and lives in Charlottetown, PEI. After completing her primary and secondary education in her home country, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Business Administration in Global Leadership from the University of Prince Edward Island. Both a fiction and nonfiction writer, her works have been featured in PEI's The Guardian, on CBC, andon her blog at LisaIwunwa.co . Iwunwa is interested in the intersection of culture, politics, and history on the lives and stories of everyday people, and Ije is her first full length editorial publication.
Essays and Contributors:
The Weight of Love - Elizabeth Iwunwa
Stomach Infrastructure - Tolulope Adesoye
A Celebration of Our Inner Light - Nindiya Sharma
A Taste of Home - Elizabeth Iwunwa
Akos - Chester Hewlett
Our Daily Bread - Rachael Sonola
My Immigration Story - Debbie Langston
Black Lives Matter: Resistance in Black and White - Oniel Kuku & Ugochukwu Nwafor
Silence is My Voice - Charles Ruth
Fleeing Home, Finding Refuge - Elizabeth Iwunwa
Good Hair - Malak Usman
The Power of Community - Mary-Ann Lamai
The Bridge from One Present to Another - John Shabaan
Ancestors - Martins Madumere
Chicken Paprikash - Chef Ilona Daniel
Home and Abroad: Contradictory Social Locations - Dr. Charles Adeyanju
Food: My Tether to Home - Via Reyes
Children of the Diaspora - Shaka Joshua Tarichia
News from Mali - Mamadou Sanogo
Tomorrow Comes Today - Daniel Ohaegbu & Jonah Chininga

“Immigration is so much more than simply moving to a new place. Ije
is a brilliant anthology that captures stories rarely considered from
the citizen’s perspective yet experienced so rawly and felt so deeply
from the immigrant’s perspective. Ije is the book that PEI needs in this very moment.” Tamara Steele, Director of the Black Cultural Society of PEI

“Elizabeth Iwunwa is the right-on-time curator of this righteous
assembly of views, interviews, art, and photos, all depicting the
Come-From-Far-Away Islanders who have found anchorage in the harbour of
Confederation and a new homeland on soil as red and promising as the
dawn. Charming and charismatic, personable and penetrating, Iwunwa maps a
community of Islanders whose odysseys have taught them that all of
Earth is an island, one where we all must find refuge, amid the endless,
bone-chilling ocean of space.” George Elliott Clarke, Author of Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir (Knopf Canada)