Safia Elhillo
Author of Home Is Not a Country
Works by Safia Elhillo
Associated Works
The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015) — Contributor — 179 copies, 2 reviews
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent (2019) — Contributor — 91 copies, 1 review
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns (2019) — Contributor — 79 copies
Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience (2019) — Contributor — 71 copies
The Best American Poetry 2022 (The Best American Poetry series) (2022) — Contributor — 47 copies, 1 review
This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets (2024) — Contributor — 32 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Eihillo, Safia
- Other names
- صافية الحلو
- Birthdate
- 1990-12-16
- Nationality
- USA
Sudan - Country (for map)
- United States of America
- Birthplace
- Rockville, Maryland, United States of America
- Places of residence
- Washington, D. C., United States of America
- Education
- Gallatin School, New York University (BA)
The New School (MFA in Poetry) - Awards and honors
- Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2015)
Forbes Africa’s “30 Under 30.” (Creatives|2018)
Pushcart Prize (special mention|2016)
Brunel University African Poetry Prize (co-winner|2015)
Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (2016)
Members
Reviews
Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo
i don't read many novels in verse but i don't know why that is. besides having a compelling story, this was beautifully written, as you might expect with poetry. using poetry was particularly poignant in this story of a young girl and burgeoning poet being taken in by an older, more well known poet who uses his power to take advantage of younger female poets he meets on the circuit. it was really well done. a powerful story, good arab and sudanese rep, great writing and poetry.
½Samira's narrative voice was very believable. You see the trouble a mile away but understand through Samira's naivety and ignorance how she cannot. Each line of poetry is beautiful, and I loved the recurring theme of Persephone and the mother/daughter relationship.
3.5
3.5
From NPR: "More than anything, the book exquisitely captures how the questions about where we come from can take over our life. It's a portrait of perspective, which holds up a mirror to show that ultimately, we are telling our own stories, and we can choose to see them differently. With my eyes heavy from reading late into the night, I finished Home is Not a Country with the feeling of walking out of a movie theater into the sunshine, where the world feels brighter and inexplicably more hopeful than when you last left it."… (more)
Intimate and lush and very very precise. I love work about people becoming obsessed with an (totally unrelated to them personally) artist/writer as a mode of working through something--Helen MacDonald with T.H. White, Alison Bechdel with Donald Winnicott (and Virginia Woolf), Safia Elhillo with Ol' Dirty Bastard and now Abdelhalim Hafez.
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 7
- Also by
- 9
- Members
- 432
- Popularity
- #56,591
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 14
- ISBNs
- 25