Ruth Padel has published thirteen poetry collections, numerous books of non-fiction including two much-loved books on reading contemporary poetry, 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey, and a novel. Four of her Chatto & Windus collections, Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth, Rembrandt Would Have Loved You (both Poetry Book Society Choices), The Soho Leopard and Voodoo Shop (a PBS Recommendation) have been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her mixed-genre book The Mara Crossing is a poems-and-prose exploration of migration and immigration; her Darwin – A Life in Poems is a much-acclaimed biography in verse of Charles Darwin, her great-great-grand-father. Recent publications include: Emerald (2018); We Are All From Somewhere Else (2020); Beethoven Variations (2020); and Girl (2024), a PBS Special Recommendation. She has won the National Poetry Competition, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and taught poetry at King’s College London, 2013-2022. Author photo © Giliola Christe
Shortlisted Works
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