By Iminza Keboge
Published April 19, 2020
Mangaliso Buzani of South Africa has won the 2019 annual Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.
A Naked Bone, the anthology that won Buzani the prize that ‘seeks to celebrate and cultivate the poetic arts of Africa’, was described as ‘a stunningly organized collection’ whose poems ‘read as curations inside of curations, thus pushing the reader through the landscapes of individual poems but also the distinct and particular gatherings of each of the book’s five sections.’
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“The bed sings, the speaker reads to frogs, the moon is seated in a dark chair of clouds,” Aracelis Girmay, who judged the entries, is quoted to have said of A Naked Bone.”These poems emerge out of loss, reckoning, and heartache … yet they are built out of a spacious, restorative wondering.”
The winner, usually a book of poetry by an African writer published in the previous year, walks away with US$1000 cash prize.
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Buzani’s first collection titled Ndisabhala Imibongo was published in isiXhosa in 2014 and won the South African Literary Award (SALA) for poetry in 2015.
The title poem of A Naked Bone, Buzani’s first book in English published in 2019, won the 2014 Dalro Prize for best poem published in the poetry journal, New Coin.
Mangaliso Buzani teaches poetry in English and isiXhosa in the MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University. Trained in jewelry in Pretoria, Buzani grew up in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth.
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The Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, funded by literary philanthropist and poet Glenna Luschei, is organised by African Poetry Book fund (APBF) in partnership with the literary journal, Prairie Schooner. The aim of the prize is to promote ‘African poetry written in English or in translation by recognizing a significant book published each year by an African poet’.
APBF was established with funding from Laura and Robert FX Sillerman. It is based at University of Nebraska.
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