Nigerian authors scoop 2023 Writivism accolades

Nigerian authors Hussani Abdulrahim and Damilola Omotoyinbo have won two of the top prizes in the 2023 Writivism literary awards competition.

Hussani took the Short Story prize for his story Ahuoyyiza’s Monologue, while Damilola got the Poetry prize for her poem, The Evening News.

Mlami Tyulu from South Africa won the Koffi Addo non-fiction prize for his essay, The Covenant of Fate.

The winners of the 2023 Writivism prizes were announced by the panel chair, Sumayya Lee, on April 28, 2024 in a ceremony held over Zoom.

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Ahuoyyiza’s Monologue tells the distressing story of Ahuoyyiza, who is undergoing treatment for her mental illness under the mercy of Janube, the town’s renowned healer. She narrates how everybody, including her husband Adinoyi, are distressed about it.

It takes ten boys to hold Ahuoyyiza down before Janube can force his piss of a concoction down her throat. Janube says he will cure Ahuoyyiza of her madness.

Hussani posted on X: “I’ve been speechless. Too excited to even articulate my feelings. Utter gratitude to the judges for finding Ahuoyizza’s Monologue worthy of the Writivism Short Story Award. Congratulations to fellow winners. And thank you to everyone involved!”

Damilola’s The Evening News dwells the effects of bigotry and tribalism in society.

She posted on X: “I won the Writivism prize, the poetry category. I am still shocked! A big thanks to the @Writivism for selecting my work.”

Mlami’s essay, The Covenant of Fate, deals with rich traditional heritage of naming children in Africa, and the practice of preserving the umbilical cord, which is still considered a child and a sign of belonging in several countries.

“In our culture, names are not just, that, but the umbilical cord that links a child to his destiny. That is why my people slaughter a goat and call it a blanket, when a child is being named, because the blood is the final act of sealing the covenant of fate…,” the essay runs in part.

Hussani has a degree in Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. He won Ibua Journal’s 2023 Bold Call, the 2022 Toyin Falola Prize, the 2019 Poetically Written Prose Contest, and WRR’s 2016 Green Author Prize. He was the runner-up for the 2023 Kendeka Prize.

Hussani has been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and a finalist for the Boston Review Prize, Gerald Kraak Award and ACT Award. His works appeared in Boston Review, Brittle Paper, Evergreen Review, Solarpunk, and Ibua Journal. He lives in Kano, Nigeria, and is working on a short story collection.

Damilola is a creative writer and software engineer. She is a fellow of the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency, the winner of the SprinNG Writing contest, a co-winner of the Writing Ukraine Prize, a finalist for the SEVHAGE-KSR Hyginus Ekwuazi Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2022 African Writers Awards.

Read: Kenyan author wins prize in literature

Damilola has work published or forthcoming on Lolwe, Olongo, The Deadlands, Ake Review, AHC, Torch Literary Arts, Agbowó, The Nigerian Tribune and elsewhere. She studied Biochemistry, and her happy places are Pinterest, YouTube and The Church.

Tyulu is a writer, artist and Candidate Attorney. He was shortlisted for the prestigious Inaugural Toyin Falola Prize in Nigeria. He also conducted creative writing workshops at the Cape Town Arts Festival, at the Artscape Theatre. He has been published in Sock Drawer and Kalahari.

Tyulu was also invited to speak at the 2021 African Feminisms Conference in Cape Town. Furthermore, he was invited by Utrecht University to submit a chapter for an upcoming book which tackles crucial social issues. He is interested in themes that help us understand life and the human experience – better.

The Writivism Literary Initiative was established as a programme of the Center for African Cultural Excellence (CACE) in 2012. In August 2023, the initiative relaunched three prizes to mark its tenth year anniversary. Winners of each category took home $1000 while shortlisted writers each walked away with $50.

“For now, we are focusing on grounding the initiative in the purely digital plane with occasional events such as readings, anthology launches, panel discussions at conferences and other like gatherings. We have two backlog anthologies (2018 and 2019) yet to get published, we only released the 2017 one, “And Morning Will Come” in 2021, during the hiatus,” the Director of CACE, Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, PhD (English), Cornell University, USA, told The EastAfrican.

“We are focusing on catching up on the anthology publishing front, and curating the archive of the first seven years of the initiative, through a photograph exhibition, an online website archive, and running the new format of the prize regularly, among other things, for the 2023 – 2027 period. We will review after that, and if deemed fit; revive the analog festival in Uganda,” Bwesigye added.