You may well have heard that this year’s judges of the Booker Prize broke their own rules by splitting the prize because they could not decide between Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. Evaristo has been making waves since the publication of her verse novel The Emperor’s Babe in 2001 and her work frequently tackles aspects of the African diaspora. Read about the authors and the controversy of the Booker judgement here.
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You can see the dilemma. On the one hand, there is a bestselling novel that has nailed a political moment, by a writer hailed as a prophet of our times. On the other, there is a verse novel …
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Bear in mind that while novels tend to get the headlines, there are poetry prizes too, and the TS Eliot prize shortlist has just been announced.
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Jay Bernard’s Surge, an exploration of the 1981 New Cross fire in south London that killed 13 young black people, is one of 10 collections shortlisted for the prestigious TS Eliot prize for …
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Prizes are all well and good, but what it the role of poetry? Does it have one? Read here about the recognition of a poets whose work tackles politics, human rights and freedom of expression in a way which has led to arrest and imprisonment.
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‘A man whose words stood in the face of prison’ … left, Befeqadu Hailu and Lemn Sissay, who share this year’s PEN Pinter prize. Composite: PR/Hollie Fernando The poet Lemn Sissay has won …
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And finally, what kind of poetic sensitivity is required for the production of poetry? Can a computer write poetry?