Zehra Naqvi
Zehra Naqvi is a writer, educator, and Rhodes Scholar, and the author of The Knot of My Tongue, which was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Raymond Souster Award, and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. In 2021, Naqvi won the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers – Poetry. Her work has been commissioned by Amnesty International and UNHCR and featured on CBC Radio, Global News TV, and in the Toronto Star. Naqvi was born in Karachi and raised on unceded Coast Salish territories (outside Vancouver).
Writers & Books
Award History
Jury Citation
“Just as the revered Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz commanded us to speak in his seminal piece ‘Bol,’ so too does Zehra Naqvi’s ‘The Knot of My Tongue’ compel us to unpack the complexities of that seemingly simple act. In a voice that is equal parts theologian, autobiographer, and linguist, Naqvi calls us to consider the possibilities and impossibilities, the power and failures of the written word. These heartfelt poems play with form and structure as they weave their way through Quranic tradition, the conspiratorial silence of community and family, and the poet’s inner world towards a beauty that speaks beyond the limitations of language." — 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award poetry jury (Irfan Ali, Domenica Martinello, and Jacob McArthur Mooney)Juror History
Works Recognized by WT