Batool Abu Akleen
Batool Abu Akleen is a Palestinian poet and translator from Gaza City. At the age of fifteen, in 2020, she won the Barjeel Poetry Prize for her poem ‘I didn’t steal the cloud,’ which was published in the Beirut- based magazine, Rusted Radishes. Abu Akleen’s poetry has been translated into several languages and featured in numerous international publications, including ArabLit and The Massachusetts Review. Her poem ‘Gunpowder’ was awarded third place in the 2025 London Magazine poetry prize, and her work was included in the July 2024 issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, ‘Salam to Gaza.’ Abu Akleen was Modern Poetry in Translation’s 2024 ‘Poet / Translator in Residence.’ Her poetry has appeared in Mohammed Al- Zaqzooq and Mahmoud Alshaer’s anthology Letters from Gaza (Penguin, 2025) and—alongside Nahil Mohan, Sondos Sabra and Ala’a Obaid—she is one of the four Gazan authors included in Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide (Comma Press, 2025). Alongside Rim Aoude, Liam Honran, Zaffar Kunial, Peter Oswald and Alice Oswald, Abu Akleen was a mentor for the ‘Hand’s Up’ Project (SOAS, University of London), resulting in the publication From Dust We Rise: New Poetry from Palestine (2025). Following her evacuation from Gaza in Autumn 2025, Abu Akleen is continuing her studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris.
