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Winner of Restless Books 2021 Prize for New Immigrant Writing

By immigrationprof

 

The winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, which is given to a first-time, first-generation immigrant author. The 2021 nonfiction prize goes to Ani Gjika for By Its Right Name, a memoir (an excerpt is here), which will be published by Restless Books in 2023. 

Albanian-born writer Ani Gjika is the author and literary translator of eight books and chapbooks of poetry, among them Bread on Running Waters (Fenway Press, 2013), a finalist for the 2011 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Her translation from the Albanian of Luljeta Lleshanaku’s Negative Space (New Directions and Bloodaxe Books, 2018) won an English PEN Award and was shortlisted for the International Griffin Poetry Prize, PEN America Award, and Best Translated Book Award.

The announcement of the award includes the following:

“Read the Judges’ Citation:
In her courageous and profoundly moving memoir By Its Right Name, Albanian-born poet and translator Ani Gjika reconstructs her personal history in Albania, America, and beyond, naming traumas that often remain unspoken. Gjika is unafraid to delve into the most taboo topic for a woman raised in a religious family within a patriarchal society: sex. The book that emerges is memorable, rich, and daring, simultaneously a portrait of Albania during the fall of communism; an exploration of language, desire, and power; and a bracingly honest sexual coming of age that unfolds across continents.”

KJ

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