Shortlisted for the Forward Prize’s 2016 debut collection award, Harry Giles’ Tonguit is a moving exploration of identity in Scots, English, and bureaucracy. Politically radical and formally inventive, Tonguit plays at the borders of nationality and sexuality with irreverent affection, questing through languages for a place to speak.

AWARDS

Shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2014
and the Forward Foundation’s Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2016
A Scottish Review of Books Pick of the Year 2016

PRAISE

An unusually adventurous and promising collection – The Guardian

Varied experiments amplify Giles’ ability to speak to the literati and the casual reader alike – The London Magazine

A thrilling mash-up of mongrel dialect and contemporary vernaculars, giving it inventiveness and freewheeling energy – Causeway / Cabhsair

Tonguit is the best new collection of the year – Eildon Tree

Harry Giles’ impressive first collection shows every sign of a particularly Scottish alertness to language, political radicalism and intellectual play… Tonguit shows the sharpest new tongue in Scotland at its most seditious, lively and visionary best. – WN Herbert

BIOGRAPHY

Harry Giles is from Orkney, Scotland. They write and perform work across poetry, theatre and games, and their work generally happens in the crunchy places where performance and politics get muddled up. They were the 2009 BBC Scotland slam champion, co-direct the live art platform Anatomy, and have toured participatory performances across Europe, North America, New Zealand and Leith. www.harrygiles.org