Now in its eight year, the Sillerman First Book Prize is administered by the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) and endowed by the philanthropists Laura and Robert FX Sillerman. The prize comes with a cash award of $1,000 to the finest first full-length poetry manuscript by an African, as well as a publication offer from the University of Nebraska Press.
Afreecan Read is thrilled to announce that the Egyptian-American poet and pediatrician Sherry Shenoda has been announced as this year’s winner.
Shenoda said that her manuscript Mummy Eaters “explores the reverence of the ancients toward the human body as sacred matter as seen through the lens of the European practice of mummy eating. Much of the manuscript is written as a call and response, in the Coptic tradition, between the imagined ancestor, and the author, as descendant.”
Shenoda was drawn from a shortlist that included the Egyptian poet Mariam Bazeed for Somewhere Sleeping, A Stranger, SouthAfrican poet Vuyelwa Maluleke for The Blue Album, and Nigerian poets Adetayo Agarau for The Morning the Birds Died, Wale Ayinla for Sea Blues, and Chisom Okafor for Birthing.
Congratulations Shenoda!
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