Amanuel Asrat (born 1971)[1] is an Eritrean poet and former editor-in-chief of Addis Zemen.
[2] A graduate of the University of Asmara, he is "largely credited for the Eritrean poetry resurgence of the early 2000s", as reported by The Guardian.
[1][3] Asrat was arrested on 23 September 2001, along with 16 other journalists that year in the wake of a crackdown on the press in Eritrea, and is believed to be detained in a maximum security prison, although his whereabouts and state of health remain unknown.
[4][5][6] In 2016, he was the recipient of an Oxfam Novib/PEN Award, accepted on his behalf by Eritrean-born Dutch journalist Habtom Yohannes.
[7] In 2020, poet and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson, who was that year's winner of the PEN Pinter Prize (launched in 2009 by English PEN, a charity that defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature, in memory of playwright Harold Pinter),[8][9] named Asrat as the "International Writer of Courage" with whom he chose to share the award.