Hungerford Shortlister, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Pushes the Boundaries of Language and Genre
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is one of four writers shortlisted for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and in the running to win a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories. We asked Yirga to tell us more about his very personal manuscript.
የተስፋ ፈተና / Trials of Hope tells my life story from boy shepherd in Ethiopia to human rights academic in Australia. It features stories from my life accompanied by Amharic poems and English translations. I was inspired to write it because I wanted to show the beauty of the rural Ethiopian world that made me, as opposed to the dominant western narratives of misery and poverty. I like to write about the sacred places, holy people and beautiful stories from my country. This for me is an expression of gratitude for my becoming and guilt for failing to give back as much as I wanted. This is an unusual story that breaks the boundaries of time, place and cultures. As a person, I love crossing multiple worlds and languages with a heart that bleeds with despair and rejoices with love. Hope is a poetic force that carries me across these boundaries.
The English narrative was written over two years but the Amharic poems were written across decades, using Ethiopia’s indigenous script (Ge’ez Fidel). To write poems is to speak with the spirit of ancestors, to create multiple meanings using carefully chosen words. The thrill that comes with writing in my native language is immense. To be shortlisted for the Hungerford Award means an opening of hope, a realisation that stories and languages like mine could have places in a world where they are rarely heard. People who live carrying multiple worlds shouldn’t have to hide or sacrifice one world to exist in the other world. This too is our home; our stories can be heard.
About the author
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia. He currently lives in Boorloo (Perth) where he is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University. His Amharic poetry has been published and performed widely on stage and radio in Ethiopia. His English short stories, translated poems and memoir have been published in anthologies and journals, including Westerly, Unlimited Futures (Fremantle Press) and Stories of Perth (Seizure). He was the 2023 Red Room Poetry Emerging Poet in Residence and one of thirty poets featured in Red Room’s ‘30in30’ National Australian Poetry Month celebrations. Follow Yirga’s Hungerford journey on X: @YirgaGelaw
The 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award will be announced at the Fremantle Arts Centre on Thursday 24 October at 6.00 pm. The ceremony will be co-hosted by Molly Schmidt, winner of the 2022 City of Hungerford Award for Salt River Road. Tickets are free. RSVP here
Download the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award judges report
