Nigerian Othune Umokoro wins £3,000 African Poetry Prize

A Nigerian poet, Othune Umokoro, has won the 2021 African Poetry Prize for his fearless words on family, hope, depression and loss.

The Port Harcourt based poet and playwright consequently pocket the £3,000 prize for his effort.

Othuke, who is a keen football fan, studied screenwriting at the University of Ibadan and works for Teach Nigeria, which aims to end educational inequality.

Born in the small town of Olomoro, surrounded by rivers, the playwright, 31, recalls a childhood spent fishing and learning to read from his mother.

“I am humbled and excited to have won,” he said. This morning I told my students the news and they screamed with joy. It feels so surreal.”

“I believe this award is a door, a door wide and inviting like the ocean. I hope my win draws attention to the extraordinarily bold works of African poets, especially contemporary African poets, crafting their poetry in the continent and beyond.”

His haunting poem, A Mountain Cracks Before Translation — mourns the suicide of a brother who had hung himself.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Journalist, Zainab Bala wins 2021 Michael Elliott Award

The award-winning British-Jamaican poet, Karen McCarthy Woolf, who chaired this year’s Prize, described Othuke as “a complex poet, with the skills to match the weight of the subjects he takes on, whether it’s sexuality and the family dynamic, HIV, or nature, ecology and politics.

“The language is lush, mesmeric and deftly handles the balance between lyric and narrative. These are unafraid, thoughtful pieces — playful, yet serious, making us look at love, life, mortality afresh.”

More than 1,000 people entered the eighth Brunel University London-backed contest – the world’s biggest cash prize for African poetry.

When 2019 Booker Prize winner, Bernardine Evaristo, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel, founded the Prize, African poetry was practically invisible. Now they are everywhere and making their mark in the literary landscape.

The other poets on the 2021 shortlist were Kweku Abimbola (Gambia), Arao Ameny (Uganda), Isabelle Baafi (South Africa), Asmaa Jama (Somalia), Tumello Motabola (Lesotho) and Nigeria’s Oluwadare Popoola and Yomi Sode.

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