2021: Bewketu Seyoum

BEWKETU SEYOUM

Bewketu Seyoum is an Ethiopian novelist, poet, essayist, and entertainer. Honored as Ethiopian Best Novelist of the Year in 2008 and Best Young Author in 2009, he is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation and is well-known for his humor writing and comedic performance. He has published seven books in Amharic, including short story and essay collections, poetry, and novels. Bewketu’s writing has been published in English translation by Callaloo, World Literature Today, Prairie Schooner, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review, Akashic Books, and Sampsonia Way Magazine.

In 2020, a book of Bewketu’s selected poems was published in a bilingual Amharic-French edition Cantique de la Nuit by Editions Dumerchez. Bewketu was an International Writers Project Fellow at Brown University from 2015-2016 and an ICORN writer-in-residence at City of Asylum Pittsburgh from 2019-2021.