Bhanu Kapil is a British American poet of Indian heritage. She developed a childhood interest in writing and cites Salman Rushdie as an early influence. She earned a BA from England's Loughborough University and, after moving to the United States in 1990, an MA in English Literature from SUNY Brockport. Kapil's collections include How to Wash a Heart (Liverpool University Press, 2020), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize; Ban en Banlieue (Nightboat Books, 2015); HUMANIMAL: A PROJECT FOR FUTURE CHILDREN (Kelsey Street Press, 2009); Incubation: a Space for Monsters (Leon Works, 2006); and The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (Kelsey Street Press, 2001). Kapil's books, often referred to as "prose/poetry," tend to be hybrid forms integrating narrative, prose, and verse in different combinations. They also deal with strange, mythological plots-HUMANIMAL, for instance, tells the story of two girls in Bengal who were supposedly raised by wolves, and Incubation follows the journey of a cyborg girl across America.