Theophanies

£11.24 £14.99

by Sarah Ghazal Ali

This edition of Theophanies is published exclusively by the87press for readers in the UK and Ireland, please visit Alice James Books for everywhere else.

Shortlisted for the (Forward) Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection 2025
Winner of the California Book Award 2025
Winner of the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry 2025
(cont. below)

In Theophanies, award-winning poet Sarah Ghazal Ali testifies to women's capacity for piercing and musical exegesis and asks: what more might a woman’s body hold after it has been hailed as a vessel for the divine? Braiding the scriptures of the Qur’an and Bible, Theophanies interlaces the spectacles of gender, faith, and family and unravels the age-old idea that seeing is believing. Drawing from art and music, Pakistani history, and cultural inheritance, these poems speak back against eons to the matriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths, the mothers at the heart of sacred history.

by Sarah Ghazal Ali

This edition of Theophanies is published exclusively by the87press for readers in the UK and Ireland, please visit Alice James Books for everywhere else.

Shortlisted for the (Forward) Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection 2025
Winner of the California Book Award 2025
Winner of the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry 2025
(cont. below)

In Theophanies, award-winning poet Sarah Ghazal Ali testifies to women's capacity for piercing and musical exegesis and asks: what more might a woman’s body hold after it has been hailed as a vessel for the divine? Braiding the scriptures of the Qur’an and Bible, Theophanies interlaces the spectacles of gender, faith, and family and unravels the age-old idea that seeing is believing. Drawing from art and music, Pakistani history, and cultural inheritance, these poems speak back against eons to the matriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths, the mothers at the heart of sacred history.

ISBN: 9781068644658
74 pages
Date published: 16/01/2025
Paperback

For fans of: Nisha Ramayya, Ocean Vuong, Anne Carson

Ali's is one of the most sure-footed debuts I've had the pleasure to encounter in many years. Wrought with precision, control, and an astute humility before the wondrous, the profound and profane, these poems feel crafted from the sum total of history, then realised at the crest of the poet's matrix of experiences. A truly fearless and tender gem of a collection. —Ocean Vuong

In this expansive debut collection, Ali draws from the Quran and the Bible as vehicles for a deeper consideration of the intersections of family, gender, and faith. … These powerful, resonant poems herald an exciting new voice. —Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Sarah Ghazal Ali is a poet and editor. A Stadler and Kundiman Fellow and recipient of The Sewanee Review poetry prize, her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for West Branch and an Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College.

Shortlisted for Kate Tufts Discovery Award 2025
Shortlisted for Eric Hoffer - First Horizons Award 2025
Shortlisted for Eric Hoffer - Grand Prize 2025
Shortlisted for Eric Hoffer - da Vinci Eye 2025
Shortlisted for Golden Poppy Awards' Martin Cruz Smith Award: Emerging Diverse Voices 2024
Longlisted for Julie Suk Award 2024
Runner-up for Alice James Award 2022

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