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All the Beautiful Places Writing Has Taken Gabriel Awuah Mainoo

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is a multiple-award winning Ghanaian writer, poet, editor, and lyricist who was raised as a sportsman by his father, training as a footballer and also in racket-sport disciplines. In the field of tennis, he clinched trophies and medals for his hall—CASFORD—and the University of Cape Coast at Ghana University Games as the tennis captain. Gabriel began as a footballer before his father introduced him to table tennis, badminton, tennis, and photography.

“In the beginning, I saw it as punishment; a young boy juggling many gifts in a phase,” says Gabriel. “But today I sit back and see everything as a blessing. I see it as means my father used to occupy my hands from meandering on the side-track.” According to him, he did have acquaintances who fluttered into robbery, smoking, alcoholism and other social vices, but he held onto his boots, racket, and the camera, using these tools to turn the narrative around. A mantra that always rang loud in his mind says: It’s not where you come from but where you want to go.

Talking about his humble beginnings in Ashaiman, Gabriel said: “I come from Ashaiman. In that city, there’s a lot of noise and distractions. I listened to the right ones. Ones I could only make good music out of.’’

How he became a writer was a miracle. He only took the joke of being a writer serious, nevertheless he wouldn’t have done it without Paul E. Pinnock who he refers to as one of his godfathers from London. The man pushed him from the lip of the cliff into the writing and publishing world. Yes, he was afraid of the height and the inescapable criticisms about his work. But anytime he was bruised, Paul E. Pinnock, his London godfather lifted him home in many ways. In the same light, Gabriel’s English and literature teachers in senior high school contributed to sparking the fire, recognizing that there was something there and going the extra mile to help him develop his gift.

With all of these support, it didn’t take long for Gabriel’s talent to start attracting recognition, as in 2020, he won the Special Prize for Soka Matsubara International Haiku Contest in Japan. With bodies of work like Travellers Gather Dust and Lust (published by Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe), Chicken Wings at the Altar, and 60 Aces of Haiku, 2021 saw him winning the “40 Under Forty Award for Authorship & Creative Writing”.

“The most beautiful part of the journey is the failures and rejections,” says Gabriel. “I don’t know how many times I’ve read, ‘I’m/we are sorry…’ in my email and the tada-daa excuses that usually follow. The irony of such stumble is that it makes you untouchable as it prepares you for the next polished work, and then the better, and then that great book. I wouldn’t have won awards if I hadn’t failed.”

But that was not all for 2021 as he was also named a semifinalist for the Jack Grape International Prize and won the Forty Under 40 Awards for Authorship and creative writing. Shortly after, his chapbook we are moulting birds (Light Factory Publication, Canada) won Best Chapbook under the auspices of LFP/RML and Library of Africa and the African Diaspora. In 2022, Gabriel won the Ghana Association of Writers Award for his poetry book Lyrical Textiles (Illuminated Press, USA), a prize in the Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Contest. In the same year, he was awarded the 2022 Samira Bawumia Literature Prize (Poetry), Author of the Year at the Ghana Youth Awards, the Africa Haiku Prize, and the 2022 West African Writers Residency.

2023 followed with the Transatlantic Relative Residency and 2024 has taken him to many places so far, including winning the Singapore Poetry Contest and being named the International-Writer-In-Residence at Hong Kong Baptist University. He was the representative poet from Ghana to headline the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival in the UK in April 2024; kind courtesy of Bath Spa University and Ashesi University. Gabriel will be in Denmark as a writer-in-residence in October 2024.

All these are only to name a few, but despite the string of successes, Gabriel to finds it somewhat sarcastic to call himself a poet sometimes, although he recognizes where he is in his career as a noble weight on the neck to carry the voices of the masses. He prefers to identify himself as a creative practitioner, a label that has led him to try his hands on other techniques and forms of craft, including the Japanese Haiku, Senryu, Senbun, Tanka, Haiga, Tanbun, Haibun among others. He lists giants like Kofi Awoonor, Kwame Dawes, Langston Hughes, Kamal Brathwaite, Gabriel Okara, and Derek Walcott as some of his influences.

Describing himself, Gabriel says he is a tennis junkie in the morning, a student in the afternoon, and a writer in the evening.

“Today I look back and realized nothing is a joke. Walking the boulevard of Bath Spa with Vice Chancellor John Strachan on my visit to the UK, he asked why I write. I said to him: “John, I read a lot and barely found any that matched my preference, so I wrote the books that didn’t exist”.”

His books include Hvor end havet skyller dig op (2024, Forlaget Silkerfyret, Denmark), Travellers Gather Dust and Lust (Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe), We are Moulting Birds (Light Factory Publication, Canada), Lyrical Textiles (Illuminated Press, US), and Sea Ballet (forthcoming).

Gabriel edits poetry for Goat Shed Press and the Journal of African Youth Literature (JAY Lit). He’s presently preparing towards a second journey in a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing after exiting Manchester Metropolitan University.