Manahil Bandukwala
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer, visual artist, and editor. She holds a BA in English from Carleton University and an MA in English from the University of Waterloo. Bandukwala’s debut poetry collection, MONUMENT, is a conversation with Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal that interrogates concepts of love, monumentalism, and empire. She was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2021, was selected as a Writers’ Trust Rising Star in 2023, and was a finalist for the Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction in 2024. Born and raised in Karachi, she is currently a settler on unceded Algonquin and Anishinaabe territory (Ottawa).
Writers & Books
Program History
2023 - Rising Star
Rising Stars
Selected by
Shani Mootoo
Citation
“In her poetry Manahil Bandukwala gives us what we perennially yearn for, but always anew, in literature: the exposition and understanding of the human heart. With enviable assuredness through pinpoint lyricism, powerful imagery and symbolism, and visual artwork, Bandukwala speaks to us breathtakingly and knowledgeably of the messiness of a variety of empiricisms that affect us today. Thoughtful and arresting, her poetic explorations of desire — the kinds that are all about love and all about power — illuminate how this multi-faceted intention has created and destroyed individuals and nations. ‘Page-turning’ and ‘storytelling’ are not words usually associated with works of poetry, and yet they are apt descriptors of Bandukwala’s impressive offerings to date.”