Somali-British Poet Momtaza Mehri Wins 2024 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry
Momtaza Mehri, a Somali-British poet and researcher, has been awarded the prestigious 2024 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry for her exceptional collection Bad Diaspora Poems. The prize includes a $1,000 award in recognition of Mehri’s outstanding contribution to African poetry.
The judging panel, led by acclaimed poet Aracelis Girmay, hailed Mehri’s work as a groundbreaking exploration of identity, language, and resilience. Girmay described the collection as “a capacious book of restless, lucid movement. Atomic. Irreconcilable. Language made molten by the heat of Momtaza Mehri’s formidable intellect, her rigorous imagination and attunements to the granular. Unbossed. Sensuous.”
Girmay further praised Mehri’s ability to challenge societal norms and expectations, stating, “Though her work is of this world, I am stunned by the way she writes with what feels like a complete and gorgeous dismissal of the tyrannies out of which we emerge. Her imagination is more unbound than that. As she has said elsewhere: ‘Blackness discoheres the national subject…’ Her thinking is tidalectic, and I return to this book for the ease with which she seems to carry our unboundedness.”
The Glenna Luschei Prize is an annual award that celebrates excellence in African poetry and recognizes the literary achievements of African writers. Mehri’s win solidifies her position as a rising star in the world of contemporary poetry.
Momtaza Mehri, who is only thirty years old, began her writing journey as a teenager and has since garnered acclaim for her work in various literary journals and magazines, including Granta and The Poetry Review. In 2018, she was appointed as London’s Young Poet Laureate, further cementing her status as a leading voice in the poetry scene.
