Petit wins 2018 Ondaatje Prize

In the UK, Paris-born Pascale Petit has won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize for her poetry collection Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe Books).

The annual £10,000 (A$18,070) prize is awarded for ‘a distinguished work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place’.

Judge Tahmima Anam said Mama Amazonica is ‘an unforgettable read’, adding that it was ‘rich with metaphor, the poems explode on the page with the multiple narratives of motherhood, illness, pain, and redemption. All of this set in a rainforest that is both mythic and vividly alive’.

Petit said of her win: ‘I’ve been obsessed with the Amazon rainforest for 25 years, and I poured that obsession into Mama Amazonica. The Amazon has become my mother, in all her abused glory’.

For more information about the award, click here.

Category: International news