This year’s prestigious African Poetry Prize was awarded to Rabha Ashry, marking the second year in a row that an Egyptian has earned the top honor. Chosen from over 1,000 entrants, her work focuses on issues of migration and the diaspora and is known for its powerful and searing images. A New York University Abu Dhabi graduate, Ashry recently finished an MFA in Writing at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. Her work has been published in the Oyez Review, Collected 2018, Airport Road, Electra Street and Strange Horizons. She spends a lot of her time writing on the train and talking to her friend’s cat in Arabic, her teaching profile page says. A mix of poets and academics were this year’s judges, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Kayo Chingonyi, Billy Kahora, Momtaza Mehri and Koleka Putuma, who praised Ashry’s poetry for its powerful, sometimes jarring, images. They said,: “These are poems which echo long after they finish on the page.”
SOURCE: THE VOICE
More Stories
Top 5 African Travel Destinations To Visit This August
African Countries that don’t Require a Visa to Enter South Africa
South Africans are Now Swelling the Ranks of Explorers Shouldering Backpacks
Getting around West Africa’s Most Populous City can be an Adventure in Itself
The Mauritian Dream
The Newly Reopened Africa Centre Celebrates the Continent’s Culture (and Seriously Chic Room Dividers)
From Bold Prints to Gender Defying Clothes: 4 Things to Know About Contemporary African Fashion
Meet the Nigerian Artist Visualizing Africa’s Future by Reaching into the Past
En Vogue
Interview: Director K is Making Historic Afrobeats Music Videos
Nigeria has Promised to Legalize Local Refineries and Set Up Refining Hubs in the Niger Delta
Central African Ministers Agree to Merge Two Regional Blocs to Boost Trade and Growth