Adiela Akoo, a recipient of the prestigious Dux Award, is an emerging South African poet and writer with a background in banking and comprehensive healing. Her debut poetry memoir, Lost in a Quatrain, was First Runner Up for poetry in the SAIP Awards 2021 and quotes from her book and other writings have been popping up across the globe, much to her astonished delight.
Adiela's poems and essays first appeared in print in the quarterly literary journal, The Moving Finger, a school publication that she co-founded with the help of a friend and the school librarian. The aim was to encourage her peers to write and seek publication, to dream and break free of the restrictive bariers that encompassed them.
She has since been published in a variety of magazines, journals and anthologies across the world, including 25 Years of Freedom, The Penmen Review, Best of Africa, Spirit Fire Review, Grey Thoughts, ILA Magazine, Fidelities, Botsotso, Renaissance, Sufi, Universul Culturii, Best Emerging Poets of 2019, Best New African Poets of 2020-20223, and others. Her poems have been ‘Poem of the Day’ on poetry sites and have won competitions. Her debut book, Lost in a Quatrain, described as "Heart Touching" and "Soul Healing" by readers. is being translated into several other languages. She has a new collection forthcoming.
Adiela has been commissioned to represent the Durban UNESCO City of Literature in various collaborations with other cities of literature, and also commissioned to write a poem for the opening ceremony of the annual conference of the Literacy Association of South Africa, where she volunteered and served in the position of Vice Chair.
Passionate about poetry and its promotion, and literacy and literature as a whole, Adiela is the Founder and Editor of the new international literary journal, The Quilled Ink Review, which offers writers a select platform to be published and build confidence on the literary stage.
To find out more about Adiela Akoo, read her backstory, and connect, visit: https://linktr.ee/Adiela.Akoo
