Nadine El-Enany Launch Readings

‘These poems of Nadine El-Enany gorgeously anticipate her readers who wait at the ends of her utterances, desirous of consolation, we “who look for ourselves in each other”. A bracing social consciousness melds with a lyric transparency that make these poems supple enough to startle readers to that place where “only new things happen”.’ – Major Jackson

The poems of Nadine El-Enany’s debut collection Pelican Daughter are imbued with tenderness and fuelled by a hunger for justice, connection and a more empathic world. With stunning lyricism she fiercely probes the pain of being powerless in the face of global catastrophes – genocide, climate crisis – without tilting into despair. These poems do not divide the personal and political – indeed, boundaries are met with love and defiance, even when they appear immutable.

Pelican Daughter was a joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize 2024, and will be published by Bloodaxe Books on 17 September 2026.

Nadine El-Enany's poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Poetry Wales, And Other Poems and Under the Radar. She is Professor of Law at Kent Law School, having previously been Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, where she was Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Law, and a Lecturer in Law at Brunel University. She is the author of (B)ordering Britain: Law, race and empire (Manchester University Press, 2020), co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021), and co-editor of After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response (Pluto Press, 2019). She lives in London.

 

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

 

 

Berwick Literary Festival, Saturday 10 October, 2pm-3.15pm

Berwick Parish Centre, Parade, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1DF

Bloodaxe Poets: James Berry Poetry Prizewinners

Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, Nadine El-Enany and Roshni Gallagher were the three joint winners of Bloodaxe’s James Berry Poetry Prize 2024.

They will be reading from their debut collections, Belling the Leopard, Pelican Daughter and Even the Trees, which are published by Bloodaxe in September 2026.  Introduced by Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.

All tickets: £10

Further information & bookings here.

[11 August 2026]

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