Walela Nehanda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Writer
- poet
- cultural worker
- Memoir
- poetry
Walela Nehanda | |
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| Notable works | Bless the Blood |
Walela Nehanda is an American writer, poet, and cultural worker from Los Angeles. Their debut book, Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir, was published by Kokila in 2024. The book won the 2025 International Literacy Association Young Adult Nonfiction Book Award. Nehanda was included in Out magazine's 2020 Out100 and was selected as a 2024 Disability Futures Fellow.
Nehanda was born and is based in Los Angeles.[1] Their early work included spoken word poetry and performance in Los Angeles.[2]
Nehanda has written about illness, disability, cancer care, and medical racism for publications including Self and Time.[3][4] In 2022, Nehanda was a fellow with Zoeglossia.[5] In 2024, the Ford Foundation and Mellon Foundation named Nehanda to the final cohort of Disability Futures Fellows, a program administered by United States Artists.[6]
Cancer and disability advocacy
Nehanda was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia at age 23.[7] They later received a stem cell transplant during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][7] Nehanda has discussed how cancer care, disability, race, gender, and body size shaped their experiences in the United States health care system.[8][9]
During the early COVID-19 pandemic, Out credited Nehanda with helping obtain supplies for 200 immunocompromised people and encouraging more than 6,000 people to register with the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry.[10]