The Nigerian-American writer, Tope Folarin and The Somali American poet, Ladan Osman have been announced among winners of the 36th Whiting Awards for fiction and poetry respectively.
Founded since 1895, the Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. The prize worth $50,000 has been won in the past by, among others, Colson Whitehead, Nadia Owusu, Ocean Vuong, and Agymah Kamau.
The 2021 winners were announced at a virtual ceremony that included a keynote by former US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith and brief readings from each winner, introduced by previous Whiting Award winner Elena Passarello.
“Informed by world events as well as ancient myths, Ladan Osman’s dazzling and incisive poetry creates vibrant connections between generations of women, between the self and history, and between our bodies and the natural world,” said the awards’ selection committee.
“Some of her most fiercely imagined poems incorporate photographs, opening up a charged space between what is seen and what is heard. Marked by a capacious imagination and an emotionally resplendent sense of metaphor, her lines fray and pile up, pushing the vital, potent lyric further.”
The selection committee spoke of Tope Folarin as an “engrossing storyteller… [who] crafts marvelous sentences that act as a clear pane of glass through which one glimpses an upside-down world. His fable-like novel is playful in its nostalgia, painful in its examination of the way ready-made beliefs are overlaid onto the minds of children as they struggle to find a self. Folarin captures the surreal judder of craziness that comes from growing up in America and then leaving it to return to the country you’re supposedly from. His work is threaded with secrets – some that must be broken open and brought to light, others that must be held close to the heart.”
Tope Folarin shared the news on Facebook “I’ve been such a big fan of the Whiting Awards for years, so I can’t even express how happy I am to have received one this evening,” he said. “So grateful to everyone who has supported my career over the years. More to come!”
Afreecan Read congratulates Tope Folarin and Laden Osman and all other winners.
Image Source: npr
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