Interview with Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes – 2024 Hungerford Award Winner

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes has won the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award for የተስፋ ፈተና / Trials of Hope. 

Written in English with accompanying Amharic poetry and prose, Yirga has written about his journey from boy shepherd in Ethiopia to human rights academic at Curtin University, Western Australia  

Yirga’s background is as a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia, who now lives with his wife, writer Rebecca Higgie, in Bentley, WA, and teaches, researches and writes at Curtin University. 

Yirga’s prize winning manuscript’s English narrative was written over two years but the Amharic poems were written across many years, using Ethiopia’s indigenous script, Ge’ez Fidel.

Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author. The winner receives a cash prize of $15,000, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press, and a residency fellowship with the Centre for Stories.

Of Yirga’s manuscript, Fremantle Press CEO Alex Allan said ‘Yirga’s story is extraordinary. It is a love song to his homeland that will inspire other Western Australians with a story to share.’

And indeed it is, and will, as our editor, Michael Barker, found out when he interviewed Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes this week and made this podcast about Yirga, Ethiopia, and የተስፋ ፈተና / Trials of Hope.

Enjoy!

You can read the full story on Fremantle Shipping News here.