CEREMONY FOR THE NAMELESS

80pp., paperback, Penguin Books, London, 2024

ISBN: 9781802065794

Winner of the 2025 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry.

In her second collection of poems Theresa Lola explores the act of naming and how in shapes our identities and aspirations. She also examines how the diasporic experience weaves through family life, history and memory.

"There is a bold immediacy and striking grace to Lola’s writing, rendering it accessible and memorable ... this book assures her place as a trailblazer for a new wave of poets" Jennifer Lee Tsai, Guardian

"The poems in Ceremony for the Nameless are suffused with a beautifully intimate energy that belies an insistent transformative power - always at work in seducing us into seeing the world through ..." Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other

Theresa Lola (b. 1994) is a British-Nigerian poet and writer and was appointed the Young People’s Laureate for London in the year 2019-20. In 2018 she was awarded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. She holds an Mst in Creative Writing from University of Oxford. She was joint-winner of the 2018 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Her debut collection of poems, In Search of Equilibrium, was published in 2019.