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The Nigerian literary community and lovers of literature are once again going to be thrilled at the Quramo Festival of Words (QFest) 2025.
This year’s festival, which holds on the theme, “Why A Brave New World Matters” will run from October 2–5, 2025 at Eko Hotels & Suites, Lagos.
However, the upcoming festival is already having a big boost as Gbemi Shasore, publisher, Quramo Publishing, just returned from Algiers, the Algerian capital city, where Dear Zimi, the 2023 Quramo Writers’ Prize winner, was shortlisted for the CANEX Book Factory Prize for Publishing in Africa.
As the excited Shasore puts it, “I came home with a renewed sense of responsibility”.
The trip to Algiers, according to her, felt like a quiet nudge, highlighting how the small labours of a modest publisher in Lagos can reach beyond Nigerian borders.
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“It reminded me that when we nurture writers at home, their stories travel farther than we imagine,” she said.
Most importantly, that sense of possibility, Shasore insisted, sits at the heart of this year’s theme, “A Brave New World”.
“Change is not an abstraction for me — it is visible in the streets, on our screens, in who reads and in how we read.
“It demands courage from storytellers, publishers and audiences alike,” explained.
She noted that QFest 2025 was designed as a festival that meets this moment: “a space where difficult histories can be held, new technologies interrogated, bold futures imagined and new writers and stories discovered through the Quramo Writers Prize”.
While eagerly looking forward to the festival’s opening, she also anxiously hope to welcome some of the world renowned literary icons.
“One guest I am especially proud to welcome is Prof. Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ”.
A writer, poet and scholar, Mũkoma teaches at Cornell University and has produced fiction and criticism that question memory, language and identity across Africa and its diaspora.
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He will lead an intimate Up Close & Personal conversation on October 4, 2025 from 11:50am–12:40 pm. Shasore noted that the conversation would offer a rare chance for festival audiences to hear directly about the ideas and the craft behind Prof. Mũkoma’s novels and poetry.
“I am also looking forward to having Stephen James Smith, the award-winning Irish poet, and James Murua, the Kenyan writer at the festival.
“For me, their presence is more than star power; it is a reminder of the intergenerational, pan African and intercontinental conversations we are trying to sustain at Quramo — between those who inherit our literary traditions and those who reinvent them,” she said, noting further that across the programme, the audience will see that thread.
Unveiling the festival programme, Shasore said that it will open with masterclasses on Thursday, October 2nd, with masters of their craft like: Dele Sikuade, BB Sasore, Prof. Mũkoma and Prof. Sarah Dorgbadzi, the Ghanaian storyteller at the Quramo Hub in Victoria Island.
On the second day, October 3rd, the festival will feature a conversation with the Quramo Writers’ Prize Top Five, culminating in the evening unveiling of the 2025 winner — moments that celebrate new voices and our ongoing commitment to publish and platform them. Saturday, according to her, holds conversations that move from the intimate — a Writers Exchange between poets Tade Ipadeola and Stephen James Smith — to the public and urgent: a carefully framed conversation on the Nigerian Civil War, 961 Days: Brothers at War; Never Again; which aims for reflection and healing rather than recrimination with voices like Major General Akintunde Akinkunmi (rtd) and Ed Keazor, amongst other great discussants.
“That afternoon, we will honour film storytelling with the exclusive screening of Thicker Than Water from Nemsia Studios and, on Sunday, a moving documentary by Remi Vaughan-Richards, Sin is a Puppy That Follows You Home”.
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She also highlighted on the festival programme balance, with activities like workshops and masterclasses to sharpen craft; panels on AI, migration, climate and film distribution to test new ideas; cultural exchanges like Siamsa to remind us how stories sit inside ritual and song; and spoken-word nights that let younger voices speak directly.
“These sessions are not separate acts — they are parts of one conversation about who we are, what we owe each other, and how storytelling can help us imagine safer, fairer futures”.
Speaking on her CANEX experience, she confessed that it showed her that the work of small presses matters on a continental stage. “QFest is where we widen that circle — where ideas that begin in small rooms can join larger debates.
“We invite everyone — readers, writers, filmmakers, students, and curious passersby — to join us in Lagos this October as we test, celebrate and reimagine what it means to be brave in a changing world,” she concluded.
