British-Nigerian playwright Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini has emerged as one of eight recipients of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prizes, each awarded a staggering $175,000. Announced on Tuesday, the honour places Ibini alongside luminaries like National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez and Booker Prize recipient Anne Enright, cementing her status as a rising star in the global literary scene.
The Windham-Campbell Prizes, based at Yale University and established in 2013 by the late writer Donald Windham, aim to spotlight literary excellence while granting writers the freedom to create without financial burden. “It was Donald Windham’s wish to provide writers with time, space, and freedom,” said prize director Michael Kelleher. “In today’s world, this mission is more vital than ever.”
For Ibini, whose works weave powerful narratives around disability, race and identity, this award is both a recognition of her past achievements and a springboard for future masterpieces.
Ibini’s journey to this moment is as compelling as her plays. Armed with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from London Metropolitan University and an MA in Playwriting and Screenwriting from City University—earned with distinction on a BAFTA and Warner Bros. scholarship—her academic roots laid the foundation for a career marked by bold storytelling. Her debut play, Muscovado, premiered at Theatre503 in 2015, transporting audiences to Barbados in 1808 to confront Britain’s dark history with the slave trade. Time Out hailed it as “a small but satisfying drama,” and it clinched the Audience Award at the 2015 Alfred Fagon Awards.
Her knack for blending raw emotion with sharp social commentary shone again in 2019’s Little Miss Burden at The Bunker. The play, centred on three Nigerian sisters—one of whom uses a wheelchair—was dubbed “a gem” by The Stage, showcasing Ibini’s ability to craft intimate, resonant stories. The COVID-19 lockdown inspired The Unexpected Expert, broadcast by BBC Four in 2020, which tackled the struggles of a disabled influencer facing slashed support—a poignant reflection of pandemic-era challenges.
Ibini’s versatility extends to the screen with Caring, a horror-comedy co-written with Gabriel Bisset-Smith. The tale of a disabled woman whose perfect carer turns out to be a serial killer landed on the 2020 Brit List, spotlighting the year’s best unproduced scripts. With filming once slated for summer 2021, anticipation continues to build for this genre-bending project.
Her 2023 triumph, Sleepova, produced at the Bush Theatre, earned her the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright (shared with Marcelo Dos Santos) and a 2024 Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre. The play’s success underscores Ibini’s growing influence, blending humour, heart and unflinching honesty.
Joining Ibini in this year’s Windham-Campbell cohort are legal scholar Patricia Williams, dramatist Roy Williams, poets Anthony V. Capildeo and Tongo Eisen-Martin, and essayist Rana Dasgupta. The prize money, drawn from Windham’s family stocks inherited from his late friend Sandy Campbell, offers these writers unparalleled creative liberty. Past recipients like Percival Everett and Ling Ma attest to the award’s legacy of nurturing transformative voices.
