Biography
Pascale Petit is a poet of French/Welsh/Indian heritage who was born in Paris. She’s the author of eight collections of poetry about the natural world, including Tiger Girl (2020), shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for the Wales Book of the Year. Mama Amazonica (2017) won the inaugural Laurel Prize for eco-poetry and the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. “Rarely has the personal and environmental lament found such imaginative fusion, such outlandish and shocking expression that is at once spectacularly vigorous, intimate and heartbroken,” wrote the Ondaatje Prize judge of her winning book. Petit, who grew up in France and Wales, trained as a sculptor at London’s Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She later edited Poetry London for 15 years, taught poetry courses for Tate Modern, and currently tutors for the UK’s Arvon Foundation. Petit lives in Cornwall, England.