Warsan Shire Wins Brunel University African Poetry Prize

Posted on April 30, 2013

Warsan Shire has been announced as the winner of the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize. She is a 24-year-old Kenyan-born Somali poet and writer, based in London.

The judges described Warsan's poetry as "...beautifully crafted, subtle and understated in its use of language and metaphor yet still able to evoke a strong sense of mood and place that touches the reader."

Warsan's poetry pamphlet, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, was published in 2011 by flipped eye. Her poems have appeared in Wasafiri, Magma and Poetry Review and in the Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt, 2011).

The Brunel University African Poetry Prize was founded by poet and novelist Bernardine Evaristo, who teaches Creative Writing at Brunel. The prize is open to poets who were born in Africa, who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African, but who have not yet published a full-length poetry collection. It carries a cash prize of 3,000 pounds. You can find more about the new annual prize here.