Biography
Yusuf Saadi’s first collection, Pluviophile, was shortlisted for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. Praised by the jury as “a beautiful, refreshing debut,” the poems are a mix of longer sonnets and shorter meditations that shift locations, from Montreal to Kolkata, from the moon to the gates of heaven. “There’s a lot of loneliness, introspection, joy, and love poured into the book,” says Saadi, whose poems consider humanity’s relationship with divinity and how we value our bodies, our language, and how we connect with one other and the larger world. Named by CBC Books as a “writer to watch” in 2020, Saadi won the Malahat Review's Far Horizons Award for Poetry in 2016, holds an MA from the University of Victoria, and currently resides in Montreal.