Irfan
Ali
Irfan Ali is a poet, essayist, short story writer, and educator. His short poetry collection “Who I Think About When I Think About You” was shortlisted for the 2015 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His writing has been published by Open Book and in the anthologies Underground Inspirations and West of What We Know. Accretion, published in 2020, is his first full-length work. Ali was born, raised, and still lives in Toronto.
Award History
2015 Finalist
RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writersfor Who I Think About When I Think About You
Jury Citation
“In his poems, Irfan Ali takes Canadian readers to Pakistan with its hot climate, violent political environment, and divine inside spaces. Employing sincere and sensual language and evoking known and not-so-known images, such as elephants and masjid, Ali’s highly erotic and emotionally rich lyricism opens us up to the lives of people of widely distinct cultures and leaves us with an aftertaste of lust, spirituality, and blood.” — 2015 RBC Bronwen Wallace Jury (Rachel Rose, Nilofar Shidmehr, and Fiona Tinwei Lam)
