Organisers of the Quramo Writers’ Prize have announced Kadiri Alex as the winner of the 2020 edition of the prize.
Kadiri’s entry, ‘Sunshower’, beat fourteen other finalists to clinch the one million naira prize money. He was announced on Sunday evening at the closing ceremony of the Quramo Festival of Words (QFest2020) in Lagos.
The judges for the 2020 edition of the prize, Toni Kan, Molara Wood, and Igoni Barrett had announced the fifteen finalists of the prize on September 2.
The winning entry, in the judges’ citation, was described as “a young man’s coming-of-age story told in the shadow of his mother’s illness as well as his troubled relationship with his father. We consider this entry a beautifully wrought tale told by a gifted storyteller with an uncanny facility for words. We believe that our winning entry is a very rewarding read, with a solid conclusion and as such a deserving first place winner.”
Aliyu Baba-Ari emerged second place for his entry ‘The Paths That Take Us’ which was adjudged a “beautifully crafted, topical, and bloody story. It is Nigeria’s contemporary story writ large and a well-told story by a gifted and confident writer.”
The third place went to Adeniyi Timilehin for his entry, ‘Unchained’ which was described by the judges as “a story that riffs on domestic violence as the big theme but there is of course the mental health component.”
Founded by Nigeria-based Quramo Publishers, the Quramo Writers’ Prize is awarded annually to an unpublished fiction manuscript by an unpublished author. Previous winners have been Samuel Monye (2017), Michael Emmanuel (2018), and Vivian Onyekachi Ibe (2019).
