Pelumi Adejumo is a transdisciplinary writer whose work explores themes of migration, mourning, mythology, and linguistic alienation. She examines the limits and possibilities of multilingualism, and the musicality that arises from moving between different languages and cosmologies. Adejumo earned her B.A. in creative writing from ArtEZ University of the Arts and her M.A. in fine art from the Dutch Art Institute. Her work has been presented by the National Theatre, Dutch National Opera & Ballet, De Gids, and exhibited at SAVVY Contemporary, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, and A Tale of a Tub, among others. In 2023, she received the Frans Vogel Poetry Prize for her multilingual work. She was also the Dutch translator of the multimedia performance Minor Music at the End of the World, written by Saidiya Hartman and directed by Sarah Benson, which premiered in 2025 at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
At MacDowell, Adejumo worked on a staged myth based on rumors about the relationship between musician Tracy Chapman and the beloved author Alice Walker. She also worked on her novella Birth Song, which traces layered grief: of migration, of death, of identity, and of fading ties to family and tradition. Full of dreams and Yoruba mythology, the work also reflects on legacy, on how stories, both written and oral, function as archives.
