Kapil wins T S Eliot Prize 2020

In the UK, Bhanu Kapil has won the £25,000 (A$44,330) T S Eliot Prize for Poetry for her collection How to Wash a Heart (Pavilion Poetry).

Drawn from a performance at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2019, Kapil’s collection depicts the complex relations that emerge between an immigrant guest and a citizen host.

Jugding panel chair Lavinia Greenlaw said: ‘Our shortlist celebrated the ways in which poetry is responding to profound change, and the stylistic freedom that today’s poets have claimed. From this impressive field, we unanimously chose Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart as our winner. It is a radical and arresting collection that recalibrates what’s possible for poetry to achieve.’

Kapil, who lives in the UK and US, is the author of six books. How to Wash a Heart was her first collection to be published in the UK.

The T S Eliot Prize, which is the only UK poetry prize judged purely by established poets, is awarded to best new poetry collection written in English. For more information about this year’s winner, see the prize’s website.

Category: International news