Luke Kennard
United KingdomAbout
Luke Kennard is a British poet, novelist, and academic born in Kingston upon Thames in 1981. He is an award-winning writer whose work combines intellectual playfulness, linguistic inventiveness, and dark humour. His poetry collection Notes on the Sonnets, an unconventional response to Shakespeare’s sonnets, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2021. His earlier collection Cain was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Kennard’s novels include The Transition and The Answer to Everything, both of which explore contemporary life through surreal situations and sharp social observation. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Exeter and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. His third novel, Black Bag, was published in 2026 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize that year.
