‘A Quiet Revolution’ – Winners of the 6th Brunel International African Poetry Prize announced

‘A Quiet Revolution’ – Winners of the 6th Brunel International African Poetry Prize announced

And this year, there are three! Hiwot Adilow (Ethiopia), Theresa Lola (Nigeria), and Momtaza Mehri (Somalia) were selected out of over 1000 entries, and awarded the prestigious prize of £3000 aimed at the development, celebration and promotion of poetry from Africa.

The judges said:

“This is an incredibly exciting time in the development of African poetry. We expect that many of the poets engaged in our impactful poetry initiatives will become the leading African poets of the future. Many of them are still very young, in their twenties, and we expect great things from them, but also those from poets who are older but still relatively new to publishing poetry. African poetry is now staking its claim on the global literary landscape. We are witnessing a quiet revolution.”

You can meet Theresa Lola and Momtaza Mehri at Africa Writes this year, where they will be performing their poetry as part of Octavia Poetry Collective, at the official festival party, 30 June at Rich Mix.

We’re also excited that another previous winner of the prize will be gracing the Africa Writes stage as the headline speaker – Warsan Shire. Get your ticket for this event, which closes the festival on Sunday 1 July at the British Library.

The prize is sponsored by Brunel University London and the African Poetry Book Fund, who also publish the beatiful New Generation African Poets series of box sets. The full shortlist was Gbenga Adeoba (Nigeria); Hiwot Adilow (Ethiopia); Michelle Angwenyi (Kenya); Dalia Elhassan (Sudan); Nour Kamel (Egypt); Theresa Lola (Nigeria); Momtaza Mehri (Sudan); Cheswayo Mphanza (Zambia). Our congratulations to all of those shortlisted, and to the winners! You can read more about the prize here.

from Africa Writes https://ift.tt/2wbnoUq

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