The Inaugural Jalada Prize Announcement

Jalada Africa is pleased to announce the inaugural Jalada Prize for Literature. The 2015 prize has been made possible by the generous part sponsorship of Kwani Trust. The long list will be announced towards the end of February and the winner made known in March to coincide with the publication of the Bonus Edition of our Afrofuture(s) issue. For this inaugural prize, the editors will vote on a long list of seven, from which a short list of three shall be selected. Our readers may nominate in the poetry category. All stories published in the Afrofuture(s) anthology are eligible.

Jalada will award Kshs 30,000 (USD 330) to the winning story, and Kshs 15,000 (USD 220) and Kshs 10,000 (USD 110) for second and third place winners respectively. We will also feature a mini-category to award Kshs 5,000 (USD 55) to the best single line of poetry or best opening to a poem. It is the hope of the collective that this award will be offered annually, and that with support and funding, it will grow in the coming years. Stories and poems published by Jalada within any year will be eligible for the prize.

About Jalada

Jalada Africa is a pan-African writers’ collective with a mission to nurture African authors through the promotion of their writing as well as the sourcing of conditions, spaces and opportunities that benefit their writing. The project began in 2013 and consists of young writers who were brought together under the auspices of British Council, Kwani Trust and Granta magazine during the Kenya Literary Week. The collective has since successfully established itself through the publication of three online anthologies as well as partnerships with Africa’s leading writing institutions such as Kwani Trust and burgeoning creative projects such as Writivism CACE Africa.

Meet the Judges

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novel A Stranger in Olondria and winner of the John W. Campbell Award, the Crawford Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award. She co-edits the online journal Interfictions.

Richard Ali is a Nigerian novelist, poet and lawyer. He has participated in various writing workshops across the continent and in 2012, he co-founded Parresia Publishers Ltd, which went on to publish great African voices including Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Helon Habila. He was former Editor of Sardauna Magazine and of the Sentinel Nigeria Magazine. He currently serves on the EXCO of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and on the Board of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation. He is a member of the Jalada Writers Collective.

Okwiri Oduor was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Her short story, My Father’s Head, won both the 2013 Short Story Day Africa Feast, Famine and Potluck story contest and the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies in Africa, the United Kingdom and America. She has taken up fellowships at the Macdowell Colony in New Hampshire and the OMI Ledig House in New York. She is currently at work on her debut novel.

Clifton Gachagua is the recipient of the 2013 inaugural Sillerman Prize for African Poetry. In 2013 he was longlisted for the 2013 Kwani? Manuscript Project and his debut poetry collection, The Madman at Kilifi, was published in 2014. His work has appeared in publications including Storymoja and Kwani? A founding member of Jalada Writers Collective, he is currently an editor and television scriptwriter.

Anne Moraa is a creative writer, editor, performer and all round word-obsessive. Exploring various forms, her poetry has been commissioned and performed at venues from Kenya to Scotland and she recently completed her Creative Writing (MA) in Fiction. Anne is a founding member of Jalada Writers Collective.

Kiprop Kimutai is a writer haunted constantly by his ancestors who demand to have their stories written. He was the second runner-up for the inaugural Kwani? Manuscript Project 2012/13 and his novel, “The Water Spirits”, will be published in 2014. He has also attended Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Farafina workshop in 2013.

Abdul Adanis a Somali writer based in the United States. His work has appeared in Kwani?, Storytime, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a collection of stories.

Stephen Derwent Partington is a teacher and literary critic who has married into Kenya. He writes a regular literary article for Kenya’s Saturday Standard, has a light topical poem in the weekly East African, and pens a satirical piece each week for the Kenyan tabloid, The Nairobian. He also writes the occasional academic article, has had poems published in numerous ‘little magazines’, and has produced two full-length collections: SMS & Face to Face (Kenya, Phoenix) and How to Euthanise a Cactus (UK, Cinnamon). He is currently co-editing a ground-breaking collection of Kenyan poetry since 2003.

Moses Kilolo is the managing editor of Jalada, a pan-African writers’ collective. He lives and works in Nairobi, from where he also runs the affairs of the collective. His fiction and poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming in Kwani?, Story Moja and Poetry Portion, among others.

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