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Michael Imossan Wins the 2024 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry

Michael Imossan Wins the 2024 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry

Michael Imossan

With this win, he became the 12th poet to win the poetry prize. 

By Hope Ibiale

Nigerian poet, Michael Imossan, has been announced as the winner of the 2024 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry, for his poetry collection, All That Refuses to Die. Imossan will be awarded a $1,000 cash prize and his work will be published as part of the African Poetry Book Series by the University of Nebraska Press. With this win, Michael Imossan became the 12th poet to win the poetry prize. 

Michael Imossan

One of the prize’s judges, award-winning poet, scholar, and professor, Gabeba Baderoon, praised Imossan’s poetry collection, stating, “Exquisite language, piercingly memorable lines [are] elegiac but with an insistence on beauty and love”. The other judges include Chris Abani, Aracelis Girmay, John Keene, Matthew Shenoda, Mahtem Shiferraw, and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, with Kwame Dawes, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund and Schooner’s Editor-in-Chief.

The judging panel also named the manuscripts Adam Vomited the Apple by Animashaun Ameen and Ara’Luebo by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola as the finalists for this year’s contest.

Michael Imossan is an Ibibio poet, playwright, and editor. Some of his other works include For the Love of Country and Memory (Poetrycolumnnd, 2022) and A Prelude to Caving (Konyashamsrumi, 2023). His full-length manuscript, Broken in Three Places was named semi-finalist for the Sillerman Prize for African Poetry, 2023. He is also a recipient of the PEN International Writers Grant.

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While sharing the win on his X page, Imossan said, “Hello guys! Last year, my collection ‘Broken in Three Places’ was a semifinalist for the Sillerman Poetry Prize and this year I have two books forthcoming from APBF, one ‘All That Refuses to Die’ which is the winner of the Sillerman Prize for African Poetry. I am soft with joy”. 

Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry
Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry

The prestigious poetry prize, funded and administered by philanthropists, Laura and Robert F.X. Sillerman, is awarded annually to an African poet who is yet to publish a collection of poetry. 

Since its inception in 2013, it has become an avenue for aspiring poets to make their mark in the literary community. Submission of manuscripts for the 2025 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets will begin from September 15th to December 1st. Only previously unpublished full-length collections from African poets are accepted.

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