Sarah Howe has won the £20,000 TS Eliot Prize, adding it to her victory last month at the Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.
Pascale Petit, Chair of the judges, described Howe’s debut collection Loop of Jade (Chatto) as standing out for its “startling exploration of gender and injustice through place and identity, its erudition, and powerful imagery as well as… daring experiment with form”. Petit’s fellow judges were Kei Miller and Ahren Warner.
Howe emerged ahead of a shortlist that also included collections by Les Murray, Sean O’Brien, and Don Paterson (winner of the Costa Poetry Award). She received the Prize at a reception at the V&A in London. Each shortlisted author received £1,500.
Funding for the Prize comes from the Eliot estate, and the Poetry Book Society is the administrator.
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