Zakariya Amataya won the 2010 S.E.A. Write Award for his first collection of poetry, No Women in Poetry. He is the first poet to win, writing mainly in free verse.

After No Women in Poetry, a second collection of poems, But in Us It Is Deep As The Sea, followed in  2013. His translated work has been published regularly in newspapers and journals. He founded thaipoetsociety.com and has organized poetry readings and events for many years.

In 2011 he resided in Hawaii for the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Artist in Residence Program. He also served as a judge for the Phan-Wan-Fa Thai Parliament Award Jury 2013 and on the PEN International/New Voices Award jury in 2015.

Since 2017, he has served as the Editor-in-chief of The Melayu Review. After spending 25 years living in Bangkok and India, Zakariya moved back to his hometown of Narathiwat to write poems and collect stories and information about Thailand’s complicated Deep South region. He plans to develop these narratives in novel form, and his daily routine ranges from lectures on literature to spending time among relevant regional and national educational institutes and organizations.

+ Go back to Literature Festival