Two Hundred Million Musketeers by Ender Başkan wins Anne Elder Award 2025

Two Hundred Million Musketeers by Ender Başkan has won the Anne Elder Award 2025, an annual prize given to best first book of poetry published in Australia.

‘The winner and commended works stood out namely for their ambition, scope and inventiveness, commented the judges. ‘They break and bend rules, subvert and reimagine poetic expectations, experiment in syntax, lineation, narrative stakes and form, each one governed by a wholly singular poetic voice. These collections not only contribute to our national poetry but extend our poetic imagination in new and unexpected ways. They are nothing short of a triumph.’

Read the judges’ comments below.

Two Hundred Million Musketeers is an illustrious, spirited debut that beholds shifting inner worlds and geographies, polyphonic voices, and everyday lifeworlds. Drawing from the language of children, waged labour, history, Marxism, and travels from Melbourne to Türkiye, Başkan’s approach to poetry is playful, lively and experimental. Narratives and lifeworlds spill out with immense velocity. Poetic interrogations of speech and sound speak to traditions of migrant poets writing in English, like Ania Walwicz and Pi O. Başkan’s lines explode like fireworks – the collection holds the absurd rhythms, spontaneous expressions and joyous exclamations of the lived world. Two Hundred Million Musketeers is a radiant debut, outstanding in originality, experimentation and resonance.

The book was also shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry, the Mary Gilmore Award and the ALS Gold Medal.

Read an excerpt here.