A UNIVERSITY of Warwick graduate has been awarded a prestigious award for her debut poetry collection.
Sohini Basak, who graduated from the university’s MA in Writing in 2013, has been named winner of the 2016 Beverly Series for her collection, ‘We Live in the Newness of Small Differences’.
Originally from Barrackpore, India, since graduating Sohini’s poetry and fiction have appeared in a number of journals and print anthologies.
She won second prize at the inaugural RædLeaf India Poetry Prize in 2013 and was a 2015 to 2016 fellow of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective.
On hearing of her success, Professor David Morley said: “I remember with pleasure Sohini Basak’s poetry when I was teaching her poetry at Warwick.
“Her use of language, line and image always surprised and delighted.
“It is no surprise therefore that she has gone on to achieve great things with her poetry.
“The winning of this prestigious prize and the publication of her first collection is an inspiration to student-poets at Warwick.”
Sohini is currently a social media manager for the translation journal Asymptote and currently lives in Delhi.
The 2016 Beverley Series was awarded by Eyewear Publishing LTD and was open to original manuscripts in any genre by any writer working in the English language.
Judge Kelly Davio, Eyewear’s senior editor, selected We Live in the Newness of Small Differences from a pool of fourteen finalists.
She said: “Sohini Basak’s We Live in the Newness of Small Differences is an impressive collection with a controlled voice, an attention to musicality, a beautiful execution of the craft, and a playful sense of the elasticity and possibility of the line.
“I have no doubt that this book’s publication will mark the emergence of a powerful new voice in the poetry world, and I’m proud that we at Eyewear have the opportunity to bring this work to the reading public.”
We Live in the Newness of Small Differences will be published in January of 2018.
