Kumukanda

<p><b>*Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2018*</b><br><b>*Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award 2018*</b><br><b><br>'A brilliant debut - a tender nostalgic and at times darkly hilarious exploration of black boyhood masculinity and grief. A gorgeous and necessary collection from one of my favourite writers' Warsan Shire</b><br><br>Translating as 'initiation' kumukanda is the name given to the rites a young boy from the Luvale tribe must pass through before he is considered a man. The poems of Kayo Chingonyi's remarkable debut explore this passage: between two worlds ancestral and contemporary; between the living and the dead; between the gulf of who he is and how he is perceived.<br><br>Underpinned by a love of music language and literature here is a powerful exploration of race identity and masculinity celebrating what it means to be British and not British all at once.<br><br><b>*Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Prize; Seamus Heaney Centre First Poetry Collection Prize; Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry; Roehampton Poetry Prize; Jhalak Prize 2018*</b></p>