Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Ghanaian-British poet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian poet.[1] Her debut poetry book Quiet (2022) won the Rathbones Folio Prize for Poetry and the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize in 2023.[2][3]
Victoria Adukwei Bulley | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Essex, England |
| Education | Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Notable work | Quiet (2022) |
| Awards | Folio Prize; John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize |
Early life and education
Bulley is of Ghanaian heritage, born and brought up in Essex, England. In 2019, she was awarded a Techne[4] scholarship for doctoral work at Royal Holloway, University of London.[1]
An alumna of The Complete Works poetry mentoring programme initiated by Bernardine Evaristo, Bulley has held residencies internationally in the US, Brazil, and at the V&A.[1]
Writing
Bulley's writing has been published in Granta,[5] The Guardian,[6] and The White Review,[7] as well as in anthologies, including Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry[8] (Otter-Barry Books, 2017) and Ten: Poets of the New Generation, edited by Karen McCarthy Woolf (Bloodaxe Books, 2017).[9]
She produced the Mother Tongues intergenerational project, in which poets worked with their mothers to translate their poetry into their mother-tongues.[10][11]
Bulley's 2017 debut pamphlet Girl B was published by Akashic Books and included in the collection New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set, edited by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes.[12] Karen McCarthy Woolf called it "a probing, thoughtful, and quietly exhilarating debut".[13]
Bulley's first book collection, Quiet (2022), was praised in The Times Literary Supplement for containing "clever and capacious poems"[14] and described in The Guardian as "mark[ing] the arrival of a major poetic talent".[15] Quiet was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and won the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize for Poetry and the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize.[16][17]
Awards and recognition
| Year | Book | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | — | Eric Gregory Award | — | Won | [18] |
| 2022 | Quiet | T. S. Eliot Prize | — | Shortlisted | [19] |
| 2023 | Rathbones Folio Prize | Poetry | Won | [20] | |
| John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize | — | Won | [21] |
Selected publications
- —— (2017). Girl B (paperback ed.). Akashic Books. ISBN 9781617755675.
- —— (2022). Quiet (paperback ed.). Faber & Faber . ISBN 9780571370337.
