Ooreoluwa O. Agbede has won the 2026 Quramo Writers Prize (QWP) with his manuscript, “Four Months,” announced at the Quramo Festival of Words (QFest), which runs from 1 to 4 October.
Marking a milestone anniversary year, the prize purse has been increased to ₦2 million, alongside dedicated second- and third-place prizes.
Highlighting the broader mission of the festival, QFest Convener Mrs. Gbemi Shasore noted that the initiative provides an essential platform for unpublished writers to birth their stories and traditions.
“This is my favourite part of QFest,” Shasore said. “We usually go back to the shortlist and longlist to get stories we can possibly publish.”
Lead judge Ugonma Nduka-Nwosu praised the standard of the entries, noting that the works spanned romance, cultural, and human-interest themes.
“They took their time to write what is very relatable,” she said, commending the writers’ ability “to observe, conceptualise and use language to take us into places we didn’t know we could go.”
Nduka-Nwosu, judging for the first time, thanked festival convener Gbemi Shasore and described the platform as vital at a time when digital distractions often rival reading.
Agbede, who was previously longlisted in 2022 for a different work, expressed gratitude to Quramo Publishing. He revealed that the protagonist of Four Months draws on his own life and the realities of navigating the struggles of regular 9-to-5 jobs.
“There are times I go to bed at 2 or 3pm,” he said, thanking the judges and his fellow nominees. “To my fellow shortlistees, I want to see everybody at the top.”
2026 Quramo Writers Prize: Finalists & Rankings
1st Place (Winner): Four Months by Ooreoluwa O. Agbede
Structured in five movements, the novel tracks the main character’s passage through grief as his life begins to fracture across Lagos, Abeokuta, and the intimate spaces of family, memory, and work after he is diagnosed with brain cancer with only four months left to live.
2nd Place: The Glass Between Us by Jenny Kingsley Emem (Represented by Obasi Rita Somtochukwu)
A novel examining the literal pane between a child in a car and a child on the road, exploring structures of distance between international conference rooms and junctions in Akwa Ibom, and between legal solutions in Geneva and problems in Kano.
3rd Place: Kuroya by John Tantswanashe Banda (Zimbabwe)
Blending campus life and the occult, sharp-tongued Nyasha navigates university pressures, a suffocating guardian, and a murderous uncle as she fights to survive long enough to claim revenge on her own terms.
4th Place: Traces of a Dream by Harilu Ali Musa
A story about inheritance, guilt, silence, and money made in the dark and donated toward the light, following three women who believed their lives were their own when the past arrives to collect.
5th Place: Tribe and Prejudice by Chigozie Laurel Amarango
The story of a young woman trapped between her own ambitions and the suffocating weight of family expectation, community tradition, and a culture that has already defined a woman’s life.