Peripety and/or Tronies

Otoniya J Okot Bitek writes poetry and fiction. Her first collection of poetry,  100 Days , won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry, and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. It was shortlisted for the Alberta Book Publishing Awards, the Canadian Authors Award for Poetry, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and the Pat Lowther Award. Her second collection,  A is for Acholi , won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. It was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes Her most recent collection of poetry,  Song & Dread , is published by Talonbooks. Otoniya’s first novel, We, the Kindling , was published by Alchemy an imprint of Penguin Random House, to critical acclaim. It was long listed for the 2025 Giller Prize for Fiction , and a finalist for the 2025 Atwood Gibson Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize. We, the Kindling was named one of Globe and Mail’s Best Books o...