Scottish-Algerian poet, Janette Ayachi, has been announced as one of the longlisted authors for the 2024 Saltire Society Literary Awards for Poetry, recognized for her collection, QuickFire, Slow Burning.
Janette Ayachi’s QuickFire, Slow Burning moves beyond the personal, exploring universal themes with poems that ignite both on the page and in performance. She examines fire as both a natural force and a metaphor for relationships, quick to ignite but slow to burn, symbolising hope, change, and renewal. Ayachi weaves a mystic undertow of nature, anatomy, and lost loves, revealing how even in loneliness, there’s always a spark of new beginnings on the horizon.
Selected from a strong pool of entries, QuickFire, Slow Burning has earned its place on the longlist, standing alongside other noteworthy poetry collections, further establishing Ayachi as a significant voice in Scottish literature.
The Saltire Society Literary Awards, established in 1936, celebrate excellence across multiple categories including Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, First Book, and Research. These awards have honoured a legacy of Scottish writers and intellectuals, promoting and preserving Scotland’s cultural and literary heritage. Past winners include renowned authors such as Ali Smith, Iain Banks, and Alasdair Gray.
Janette Ayachi is a London-born, Edinburgh-based, Scottish-Algerian poet. She graduated with a Combined BA Honours in English Literature & Film Media from Stirling University and an MSc in Creative Writing from Edinburgh University. She’s a regular on BBC Scotland arts programmes and her work has been translated into several languages across a broad range of journals and anthologies. Her debut poetry book Hand Over Mouth Music (Pavilion) won the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year Literary Award 2019 and she is now working on her travel memoir Lonerlust. She collaborates with artists and works with poetry in public places, as well as regularly performing spoken word at festivals and events internationally.
For more information on the longlist, visit the Saltire Society official website.
Congratulations, Janette Ayachi!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
