Organisers of the Graywolf Press African Prize for Fiction have announced the call for submissions for its third edition.
The prize recognises “a first novel manuscript by an African author primarily residing in Africa”—with a $12,000 advance, publication in the US by Graywolf Press and a “dedicated effort to making the book available in major markets in African countries.”
The inaugural prize in 2018 was won by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber for The House of Rust, which is to be released October 2021, while the 2019 award went to Noor Naga for If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English to be published April 2022.
Graywolf is“seeking novels that are engaged with the current moment and that approach contemporary issues with innovative prose and fresh perspectives”, for its third edition.
Submissions open on August 1 for one month.
Nigerian author A. Igoni Barrett, who also judged the first and second editions of the prize, will be returning as judge for the third edition. Barrett is the author of a story collection Love Is Power, or Something Like That (Graywolf Press 2013) and a novel Blackass (Graywolf Press 2016). He is the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. He lives in Nigeria.
Founded in 1974, Graywolf Press, which is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is an award-winning independent publisher committed to the discovery and energetic publication of contemporary American and international literature. The African authors on their list range from Nuruddin Farah, to Binyavanga Wainaina, to Tsitsi Dangaremgba.
