Ber Anena is not just a third-year Ph.D. student in English at UNL; she is also an acclaimed writer and poet who has won several prizes. For her nonfiction book, The Lies We Tell for America, she recently secured a six-figure deal with Flatiron Books. In 2018, she won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa for her poetry collection, A Nation in Labour.
"The Lies We Tell for America" will be a memoir that explores Anena’s time at Columbia University during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will reflect on identity, immigration, and the complex realities of Western education as an international student.
She recently completed two research papers: one examines how African women poets in the diaspora write about the body and migration, and the other focuses on nineteenth century African poetry and political resistance. Her dissertation is a poetry collection that chronicles and interrogates the Lord’s Resistance Army war that occurred in Northern Uganda from around 1986 to 2006. She is interested in indigenous African feminisms, particularly the framing of the woman’s body as a voice even when it is often socially and culturally silenced.
After spending three years in New York, Ber says she needed a place with a calmer pace, lots of space, and sun. She is grateful for what she learned during her MFA Writing program at Columbia University. Still, the city was overwhelming (COVID-19)—ticking the box for Nebraska as the place to relearn the feel of the wind on the skin, where she could look up and see stars unobstructed by sky-high concrete.
She has always wanted to work with Prof. Kwame Dawes, who has become her mentor and academic advisor. Many people had reservations about her move from New York to Nebraska, but she doesn't regret it. She has made many friends here and has become part of a supportive community of African students. She credits the English Department at UNL as the most supportive writing department she has been a part of.
One of Ber's proudest professional moments was publishing her first poetry collection, A Nation in Labour, in 2015, when she was figuring out her writing career. Even more rewarding was that the book was selected as the joint winner of a continental prize: the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa.
How is she making a difference in UNL as a graduate student?
She says her research will contribute positively to African and Afro-diaspora literature scholarship. As a teacher and mentor in the English department, she also works to ensure those who come after her don’t go through the hurdles she did, or at least to prepare them for it.
She credits her parents for impacting her life most, while her sisters, friends, and husband are her go-to whenever she has something to celebrate, discuss, or cry about.
If she could change the world, Ber says she would make college and healthcare free for all and stop all the harm we inflict on the environment.
What is your life’s philosophy or mantra?
Kindness and integrity.
In the future, she plans to teach creative writing at the university level and continue writing.
She would love to be remembered for writing that impacted someone’s life and for helping those in need when she could.
She believes in having quality sleep to give the brain enough time to refresh.
Ber enjoys okra stew with sun-dried fish and also loves yellow baby bananas and a couple of Acholi foods.
Fun fact?
She used to be a singer and participated in inter-school music competitions, many of which she won, but she still wonders what happened to her voice.