Jessy James LaFleur, born in East Belgium, is a spoken word activist. She has been performing her socially critical and stirring poetry in three different languages for 20 years and has conquered stages in more than 30 countries. She is the founder of the ‘Spoken Word Academy’, which realises democratic poetry projects for young people across Europe in order to take action against the growing right-wing shift. For her work in the Sorbian settlement area of Lusatia, she was honoured as a ‘cultural and creative pilot’ and ‘new territory winner’. She also coaches young companies, runs workshops in schools and prisons and created the ‘LOst Poets’ collective for young adults in rural areas, for which she launched her own publishing house in 2023, focussing on the post-reunification generation, Lusatia and the Sorbian language. Jessy James LaFleur lives in Berlin and Prague and is also working on her new poetry collection ‘La vie est (re)belle’.