Zaffar Kunial to become next Douglas Caster Fellow

Zaffar Kunial will succeed Vahni Capildeo as the next Douglas Caster Fellow in Poetry.

Zaffar’s collection, Us, was the Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice 2018, and was shortlisted for both the Costa Book Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize.  Among other honours, he won the top poetry award in the 2013 Northern Writers’ Awards, and was a Faber New Poet in 2014.  He has been poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, the Ilkley Literature Festival, and the Ledbury Literature Festival, and he is currently Burgess Fellow in Creative Writing at Manchester University.

Zaffar will take up his Fellowship in the summer.  He will join the Cultural Institute Academy of Cultural Fellows and will be a member of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre.  He will be based in the School of English.