ETHIOPIAN-born poet Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes has beaten more than 80 entrants to win the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Prize for his book Trials of Hope. 

Trials of Hope is a combination of poetry and stories of Woldeyes’ life from his boyhood as a shepherd in Ethiopia, to his life in Perth as a university academic.

A “love story to his homeland”, Trials of Hope is written in English and the poetry in the Ethiopian Amharic language, with English translations. 

Hailing from Lalibela, Ethiopia, Woldeyes is a lecturer in human rights education at Curtin. 

• Hungerford Award winner Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes.

“I was inspired to write it because I wanted to show the beauty of the rural Ethiopian world that made me, as opposed to the dominant western narratives of misery and poverty,” he said. 

“I like to write about the sacred places, holy people, and beautiful stories from my country.

“This for me is an expression of gratitude for my becoming, and guilt for failing to give back as much as I wanted.” 

The Amharic poetry is written in Ethiopia’s indigenous script Ge’ez Fidel and Woldeyes says it was a “thrill” to tell his story in his native language. 

“To write poems is to speak with the spirit of ancestors, to create multiple meanings using carefully chosen words. 

“The Hungerford Award means an opening of hope, a realisation that stories and languages like mine could have places in a world where they are rarely heard.

“People who live carrying multiple worlds shouldn’t have to hide or sacrifice one world to exist in the other world… this too is our home, our stories can be heard.” 

Woldeyes has been awarded a publishing contract with Fremantle Press, $15,000 cash, and a residency fellowship at the Centre for Stories. 

Trials of Hope by Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes will be published next year.

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER