Amanuel Asrat

Amanuel Asrat (born 1971) is an Eritrean poet and former editor-in-chief of Addis Zemen.

Biography A graduate of the University of Asmara, he is "largely credited for the Eritrean poetry resurgence of the early 2000s", as reported by The Guardian. In 2001, Amanuel together with two colleagues set up a grassroots literary club, and similar clubs were soon established across the country.

In 2016, he was the recipient of an Oxfam Novib/PEN Award, accepted on his behalf by Eritrean-born Dutch journalist Habtom Yohannes.

In 2020, poet and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson, who was that year's winner of the PEN Pinter Prize (launched in 2009 by English PEN, a charity that defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature, in memory of playwright Harold Pinter), named Asrat as the "International Writer of Courage" with whom he chose to share the award.

Awards

2016: Oxfam Novib/PEN Award 2020: PEN Pinter Prize International Writer of Courage Award