The recipient of the Golden Wreath Award for 2021, the main award of the Struga Poetry Evenings is poet, essayist, playwright, professor and creative director of The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, Carol Ann Duffy.

This exciting award was announced at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, on 21st March in accordance with World Poetry Day. This year, the celebration was in honour of 100th anniversary since the birth of Blaze Koneski, whose jubilee is part of the calendar of important international jubilees supported by UNESCO.

Manchester City of Literature is delighted to have Carol Ann’s work recognised by UNESCO in this way, as part of the Creative Cities Network and a UNESCO City of Literature since 2017.

The prestigious award will be presented during the Bridges poetic reading, one of the central events of this year’s festival edition, planned to take place from the 25th to 30th August.

Carol Ann Duffy stated, in her official address:

 

“In these grim, dark times for the world, I am overwhelmed to find at my door the light of a Golden Wreath. To have my name added to a list of poets who have meant so much to me throughout my reading and writing life is an extraordinary gift for which I will be forever grateful. Poetry is a vocation, the music of being human, which seeks only to answer the world and, in so doing, add to it with the new songs of words. This year, the expression “words fail me” has taken on a somber meaning for me as poet, so this wonderful award from North Macedonia has lifted my spirits and made me so happy to be welcomed into this great European tradition of valuing poetry.”