Juliane Okot Bitek Wins African Poetry Prize
Juliane Okot Bitek’s poetry collection “100 Days” published by the University of Alberta Press, 2016, has been
named winner of the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize of African Poetry.
The prize, administered
by the African Poetry Book Fund, annually awards $1,000 to a book of poetry by
an African writer published the previous year.
Judge of the 2017
Prize, John Keene, scholar and award-wining writer observed that, “In 100 Days, poet Juliane Okot
Bitek set out to memorialize the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide, but the
witnessing force of these brief, incantatory poems ripples outward to
figuratively encompass multiple histories of violence and brutality, including
the terror her own family and countless others faced under Idi Amin’s regime in
Uganda. The lyric beauty, intertextual depth, and metonymic power of Okot
Bitek’s poetry underscores the capacities of of art and language to cast light
into the darkest corners of our human experience, and bridge the gulfs that lie
between us.”
Juliane Okot Bitek was born in Kenya to Ugandan parents. A PhD student with the University of British
Columbia’s Liu Institute for Global Issues in Vancouver, her work have been published
widely online and in print in magazines. She has also been featured in Great
Black North: Contemporary African
Canadian Poetry and Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them.
Director, African Poetry Book Fund, Kwame Dawes, said it is
exciting to celebrate the brilliant poetry of Juliane Okot Bitek, “whose name
reminds us of the rich legacy of African letters that she is extending in this
beautiful collection.”
The Director noted that with the renewed support from
Glenna Luschei, this prize would continue to appreciate the work of African
poets as well as the efforts of the publishers who publish them.
Timothy Ogene’s Descent
& Other Poems and Stephen Symons’s Questions
for the Sea received honorable mentions.
The African Poetry Book Fund, which was established through
the generosity of Laura and Robert F. X. Sillerman and in partnership with the
literary journal Prairie Schooner, seeks to celebrate and cultivate the poetic
arts of Africa.
The Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, considered as
the only pan-African book prize is being funded by literary philanthropist and
poet Glenna Luschei to promote African poetry written in English or in
translation by recognizing a significant book published each year by an African
poet.
African Poetry Book Fund has survived its interest in promoting
and advancing the development and publication of the poetic arts of Africa
through its book series, contests, workshops, and seminars and through its
collaborations with publishers, festivals, booking agents, colleges,
universities, conferences and all other entities that share an interest in the
poetic arts of Africa.
This is nice. Really nice. Congratulations!
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