Interview with Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes - 2024 Hungerford Award Winner

As we recently reported, 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 shares his journey from boy shepherd in Ethiopia to human rights academic at Curtin University.

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes. Credit Fremantle Shipping News

Yirga’s background is as a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia, who now lives with his wife, writer Rebecca Higgie, in Bentley, 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.

Mayor of Fremantle, Hannah Fitzhardinge, announced the win last Thursday night, 24 October 2024, at Fremantle Arts Centre. In her speech she recognised the impact of the Award for writers, and for Fremantle, revealing that the City had decided to continue its sponsorship for a further six years.

Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author.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.

This year, more than 80 writers entered the award. The other manuscripts shortlisted were Far From Wonderful by Howard McKenzie-Murray (fiction), Screech by Jodie Tes (fiction) and I Remember Everything by Fiona Wilkes (fiction).

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.

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