Juliane Okot Bitek


Juliane Okot Bitek is a Kenyan-born Ugandan diasporian writer and academic, who lives, studies and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In December 2017, she was named the winner of the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry for her poetry book 100 Days, a reflection on the 100-day 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.

Background and education

Okot Bitek was born in Kenya in the 1970s, to Ugandan exiles. Her father was the late Okot p'Bitek, an internationally recognized poet and scholar. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in creative writing and a Master of Arts degree in English. As of February 2018, she was a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues.

Career

Okot Bitek migrated from her native Uganda and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1990. She writes, attends university and teaches to support herself. She admits that creative writing does not pay all the bills unless one is a top-notch author.
Bitek joined the Board or Room magazine in 2018.

Recognition

In 2004, Okot Bitek's short story "Going Home" won a special mention in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Story Contest. It was featured on the British Broadcasting Corporation and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her story "War No More" won first prize in a StopWar post-secondary essay competition in 2005. Another essay on Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking also won a special mention in 2006 and is included in an anthology of winning essays from that year. In 2007, Okot Bitek received a grant from the Canada Council, which has facilitated her to write non-fiction. Her work has been published widely online, in print and in literary magazines, including in Arc Poetry Magazine, Whetstone, Fugue, and Room of One's Own. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.