Leila Inanna Sultan has been awarded the 2026 Borås Tidning Debutant Prize for her poetry collection Straffkolonien. The prize ceremony, marked by celebration and confetti, concluded a full day dedicated to literature through a collaboration between Borås Tidning and Högskolan i Borås.According to jury member Julia Pennlert, university lecturer and literary scholar at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, this year’s field of nominees was particularly strong. However, the jury unanimously agreed that Straffkolonien stood out. In its motivation, the jury described the collection as multifaceted, employing varied poetic forms and linguistic expressions to deliver a politically urgent voice. The work portrays personal experiences of asylum processes and detention from an intimate, inside perspective.Earlier in the day, upper secondary students from Bäckängsgymnasiet visited the university to meet the nominated authors. As part of their coursework, the students had read all nominated works and were given the opportunity to discuss literature directly with the debut writers.Borås Tidning’s Debutant Prize, established in 2001, is Sweden’s largest award for fiction debutants and aims to support promising new authors at the beginning of their literary careers.
Source: Högskolan i Borås
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