Cheswayo Gabriel Mphanza

https://cheswayomphanza.com/
B. 1993
Cheswayo Mphanza, a black man with short brown locs, in a close-up shot with his hand gently resting on his face as he coyly smiles.

Photo by Johanna Tesfaye

Cheswayo Mphanza was born in Lusaka, Zambia and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His work has been featured in New England Review, TheParis Review, Hampden-Sydney Review, Boston Review, Lolwe, and other publications. A finalist for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, a recipient of the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, winner of the 2020 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest, and a Creative Capital 2022 awardee, his debut collection The Rinehart Frames (University of Nebraska Press, 2021), was the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle and 2021 Foreword Indies award for poetry.