Awards

• Winner of Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award 2024

Overview

Winner of an Eric Gregory Award 2024 In Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems—a new work of poetry, full of clear-sighted love and deeply human warmth—Francis-Xavier Mukiibi explores what it means to belong to this world and to one another. Part of Little Betty 2025. ‘With its free and confident use of Luganda, Francis-Xavier Mukiibi conjures a Bantu boyhood into a beautiful music that moves effortlessly from detail to a sense of the global. This is a new, very rich sound in poetry and a memorable description of youth!’  Gwyneth Lewis ‘Reading each poem in this collection is akin to discovering a bidirectional loophole between worlds. I raised my head up and down like an agama lizard in a Bantu sunset, admiring Francis-Xavier’s talent for bringing the mundane to life.’  Eric Ngalle Charles ‘A glorious, searing pamphlet. The poems leap from the page, utterly alive with sound and with language, with beauty and with storytelling, with curiosity and with craft. This is a powerful voice and an expansive and atmospheric read.’  Cecilia Knapp ‘Poised, surreal, and unafraid of strangeness, Mukiibi’s vivid poetic eye has the ability to shape meaning from the most granular of images. Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems heralds the coming of a brilliant voice.’  Victoria Adukwei Bulley ‘Beneath the Sahara sun, a new Ugandan poet is forged from the clay.’  Nick Makoha

Full Product Details

9781913268800

Table of Contents

Reviews

‘With its free and confident use of Luganda, Francis-Xavier Mukiibi conjures a Bantu boyhood into a beautiful music that moves effortlessly from detail to a sense of the global. This is a new, very rich sound in poetry and a memorable description of youth!’  Gwyneth Lewis ‘Reading each poem in this collection is akin to discovering a bidirectional loophole between worlds. I raised my head up and down like an agama lizard in a Bantu sunset, admiring Francis-Xavier’s talent for bringing the mundane to life.’  Eric Ngalle Charles ‘A glorious, searing pamphlet. The poems leap from the page, utterly alive with sound and with language, with beauty and with storytelling, with curiosity and with craft. This is a powerful voice and an expansive and atmospheric read.’  Cecilia Knapp ‘Poised, surreal, and unafraid of strangeness, Mukiibi’s vivid poetic eye has the ability to shape meaning from the most granular of images. Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems heralds the coming of a brilliant voice.’  Victoria Adukwei Bulley ‘Beneath the Sahara sun, a new Ugandan poet is forged from the clay.’  Nick Makoha

Author Information

Francis-Xavier Mukiibi is a poet and performer of Ugandan heritage from North London. He is an alumnus of the Barbican Young Poets programme, the Roundhouse Poetry Collective and the Obsidian Foundation retreat. His debut pamphlet, Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems (Little Betty, 2025), received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. He placed Silver in the Creative Future Writers’ Award for 2024. His poems appear with Ink Sweat & Tears, zindabad zine, Under the Radar, Propel, Magma, Poetry Wales, Poetry London, Broken Sleep Books and flipped eye publishing. He was selected as a finalist for BBC Words First in 2020 for his poem 'How Much is Community', and won the UniSlam Coach’s Slam in 2023 for his poem 'Bloody Waters III'. His self-produced short poetry film @Brookfield Lake was one of 40 films commissioned as part of the Apples and Snakes Future Voices programme, and he participated in the Apples and Snakes Word’s A Stage cohort for 2024. He has performed his poetry on BBC Radio and iPlayer. He has featured at the Roundhouse, the Barbican Centre, the Southbank Centre, the British Museum, Camden Inspire Festival, Tottenham Literature Festival, the Roundhouse Last Word and London Literature Festival, among others.

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