The Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021/2022 is a major annual poetry prize of £3000, aimed at the development and promotion of poetry
The Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021/2022
The Brunel International African Poetry Prize is a major annual
poetry prize of £3000, aimed at the development, celebration and promotion of poetry from Africa. The Brunel International African Prize is sponsored by Brunel University, located in London.
The African literary prize was initiated by the British-Nigerian writer, Bernardine Evaristo in 2012. She is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction including Mr Loverman, Lara, The Emperor’s Babe and Blonde Roots. Her new novel, Girl, Woman, Other, was published by Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin Random House UK in May 2019 and Black Cat/ Grove Atlantic in November 2019. The novel won the Booker Prize 2019 and became a Sunday Times bestseller.
Bernardine is also a literary critic for the national newspapers, and an editor of anthologies and special magazine issues. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature. She has judged and chaired many leading literary awards and in 2012 was Chair of both the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and The Caine Prize for African Fiction. She has won several awards and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006, a Fellow of the English Association in 2017, and a Fellow of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in 2018. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2009.
As a long time advocate for writers of colour, she initiated the Arts Council Free Verse report (2006) and The Complete Works mentoring scheme (2007-2017, led by Dr. Nathalie Teitler) to address the underrepresentation of Black and Asian poets in British poetry presses.
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Most of the former mentees are publishing full-length poetry collections with leading poetry publishers and have won or been nominated for many awards, including winning the prestigious Forward Prize for best first collection (Mona Arshi) and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and T.S. Eliot Prize (Sarah Howe).
In the 1980s Bernardine co-founded Britain’s first black women’s theatre company, Theatre of Black Women and in 1995 she co-founded Spread the Word, London’s premier writer development organisation.
The Brunel International African Prize 2021/2022 is organized to revitalise African poetry, which at the time was almost invisible on the literary landscape. The Prize was set up to encourage a new generation of poets who might one day become an international presence.
Since its inception, leaving amazing writers who have won the Prize to works closely with the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) and have had their respective works published, the literary prize has been regarded as one of the most anticipated in Africa.
The Brunel International African Prize 2021/2022 is open to poets who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African.
It is for ten poems exactly in order to encourage serious poets.
These poems may, however, have already been published.
Only poets who have not yet had a full-length poetry book published are eligible.
Poets who have self-published poetry books or had chapbooks and pamphlets published are allowed to submit for this prize.
Submission fee: $0
General Rules For Submission To The Brunel International African Prize 2021/2022
The Prize is open to African poets, defined as those who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African. Poets who do not fulfil this criteria are ineligible.
The Prize is open to African poets who have not yet had a full-length poetry book published at the time of submission. Self-published poetry books, chapbooks and pamphlets are exempt from this stipulation.
Only poems written in English are accepted. Poems translated into English are also accepted with 50% of the Prize money going to the translator.
The Prize opens for submissions from October 1st 2021 to December 1st 2021. Each entrant must submit 10 poems to be eligible, no more and no less. There is no stipulation as to the content of submitted poems.
The poems may have been previously published or won previous awards.
All entries must be submitted via email only here.
An acknowledgement will be sent. (Please note that email enquiries about the rules will not be answered.)
Under no circumstances can alterations be made to poems once entered.
Under no circumstances will the organisers or judges enter into discussions with entrants who have submitted poems.
The organisers reserve the right to not award the Prize if, in the judges’ opinion, such an action is justified.
The organisers also reserve the right to split the Prize if they decide that more than one poet is worthy of winning it.
The judges’ decision is final and they will not enter into any correspondence with entrants regarding their decisions.
Rules: Poems
Poems must be the original work of the entrant.
Each poem must have a title or a number
Poems should be single spaced.
There is no stipulation regarding font type and size.
Poems must be emailed in a SINGLE Word document attachment (not a PDF) – with an index cover page that contains the entrants’ name, nationality, country of birth, full address including country of permanent residence, personal email address and telephone number. Any applicants who submit a PDF will be discounted from the Prize.
The submission document must be name of the poet, not the name of the prize.
The entire submission must be in black ink, no colours.
Individual poems received as separate file attachments and poems sent within the body of an email will be automatically rejected with no notification to the poet.
People who have entered previously for the prize can re-submit again but it is advisable to re-submit with new poems. Previously there was a rule about a shortlisted poet not submitting two years in a row. However this rule has now been suspended.
All shortlisted and winning poets agree to allowing this website to post their ten submitted poems on here.
Rules: Winner Only
The winner must be available via email to reply promptly to correspondence. The winner will be required to provide a biography and photograph and to be available for media interviews, either online, by phone or, if geographically possible, in person.
It will be helpful if the winner has or creates a social media presence but this is in no way a condition of winning the prize.
The copyright of the winner’s poems remains with the winning poet.
Brunel International African Prize 2021/2022 Shortlist
The shortlist is announced in March & the winner/s in May 2022
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