The year is not over, and Nigerian writers have already filled the trophy cabinet.
Start with Akin Adesokan. The Indiana University professor’s second novel, South Side, won Parrésia Publishers the $20,000 CANEX Prize for Publishing in Lagos this month. The book itself is a study in patience: Adesokan first conceived it as a short story in 2006, wrote and revised it for over a decade, finished the manuscript by 2017, and then spent years finding a publisher before Parrésia released it in 2025. It is his first novel in 21 years, following Roots in the Sky, which won the Association of Nigerian Authors’ Prize for Fiction in manuscript form in 1996.
South Side follows Abel Dankor, a stateless man born in international waters in the 1930s, who moves across the globe before attempting to naturalise in a fictional West African country called Mande. Reviewers have read it as a novel about identity, displacement and the search for belonging, themes that align neatly with CANEX’s “Global Africa” framing. The prize is a win not just for Adesokan, but for Parrésia, the independent press Azafi Omoluabi and Richard Ali founded in 2012 to sell books to Nigerian readers and promote the freedom of the imagination.
The TFAA Shortlist
The Future Awards Africa announced its Literature Prize nominees for its 20th edition: Damilare Kuku (Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad, Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow), Eloghosa Osunde (Vagabonds!), Fatima Bala (Broken: Not a Halal Love Story, The Lies We Tell) and poet Peter Okonkwo (Escape from the Unseen Dungeons) .
The theme of the 20th edition is “Celebrating The Redefiners: Africa’s AI Generation.” Writer Somto Ihezue publicly stated that he was nominated and chose to decline after learning that the awards hoped to celebrate writers using AI in their storytelling. He said he contacted organisers to request the removal of his name, photograph and biography. His name does not appear on the published list. TFAA has not commented publicly.
The Chiemeke Recognition
Jerry Chiemeke’s UK Black Comms Network Trailblazer shortlist, already reported by Brave Nigerians, is a different kind of recognition. The Writing Excellence category honours a journalist or author whose work has demonstrated exceptional clarity, integrity and impact. Chiemeke is nominated alongside Chioma Nnadi, Funmi Fetto, L’oreal Blackett, Nicole Vassell and Sinai Fleary, with winners announced in London in February 2027.
Chiemeke’s career sits at the intersection of criticism, journalism and literature, a space Nigerian prizes rarely celebrate. He won the 2017 Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize for Reviews, was shortlisted for the 2019 Diana Woods Memorial Award for Creative Nonfiction, and has covered Berlinale, Durban and Blackstar as a film critic. The UK BCN shortlist recognises the intellectual labour that sustains literary culture: the reviews, the criticism, the reporting that keeps books in conversation with the world.
What This Means
Nigerian literature is winning. Adesokan’s CANEX win, Chiemeke’s UK shortlist, the TFAA nominees—these are not minor achievements. They represent a literary ecosystem that is producing work of genuine quality and finding platforms to celebrate it.
The writers on these lists are worth reading. Adesokan’s South Side is a serious novel by a serious writer. Kuku, Osunde and Bala have built audiences with work that speaks to contemporary Nigerian life. Chiemeke’s criticism has shaped how Nigerian film and music are understood. The prizes are useful. The writing is the point.
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