Quramo Writers Prize unveils shortlist, books of QFest 2025

The longlist for Quramo Writers Prize (QPW) 2025, a manuscript prose fiction writing contest and critical creative component of the nine-year-old Quramo Festival of Words (QFest), has been unveiled after a month-long rigorous judging process by a three-man jury that comprises of Aduke Gomez, jury head, with Wase Aguele-Konu and Anote Ajeluorou as members. The longlist of five outstanding manuscripts from which a further shortlist has emerged are: ‘Black Bird’ by Chioma Jane Okeagu; ‘Kaku’ by Esther Eniola Oyeleye, ‘Moon Child’ Abiola Junaid, ‘Son of the Harem’ by Harry Onyeogo and ‘What Breaks, What Binds’ by Hubaidat Oyinkansola Ishola. The longlist was derived from 34 manuscripts submitted for the prize this year.

A cash prize of one million naira will be awarded to the winning manuscript plus a publishing deal. Dear Zimi by Chizeterem Chijoke won two years ago and was published last year. It earned Quramo Publishers a shortlist position in the USD$20,000 worth CANEX Book Factory Prize for Publishing in Africa 2025, won by South Africa’s Karavan Press for In Silence My Heart Speaks, by Thobeka Yose. ‘Black Bird’, ‘Moon Child’s and ‘What Breaks, What Binds’ are the shortlisted manuscripts for QWP 2025! The winner will be awarded the ₦1,000,000 cash prize plus publishing deal. Apart from the prize, QFest 2025 has revealed the books and the writers that will feature in this year’s festival. They include: Hubris: A Brief Political History of the Nigerian Army by Dr. Akintunde Akinwumi; My Name Is Okoro by Sam Omatseye, chairman, editorial board, The Nation Newspaper; Across the Gulf and Shadows and Ashes by Dul Johnson, a professor at University of Jos. The books dwell on the infamous 30-month Nigerian Civil War from 1967 to 1970. Interestingly, the books constitute the nucleus of this year’s Quramo Festival of Words (QFest) 2025. For Gbemi Shasore, festival convener, it is about time to heal historical pains from the war, so that the country could move on in its march to a glorious future.

According to her, “It is great when we talk about stories that tie to the Nigerian Civil War. Don’t forget, our name is Quramo Festival of Words. Very many things happen with words. Words provoke, words heal, words challenge, words nurture, words archive, words do a lot of things. As a publisher, as a filmmaker, I am thrown into words, flowery, unsavoury, humorous words, and so we thought about the civil war. We are not coming to it from an accusatory point of view. We are coming from the position that a lot has been written about the civil war, either to purge, to heal; either to come to terms, loads of fiction books, non-fiction books, entries into journals, gazettes in government documents; things have been written, words have been written about the civil war. “One thing is for sure; I lived the end part of the war as a child, and I think I was about seven or eight, because I remember I was trying to get a grip of my trainer bike, learning how to ride without trainer wheels when the war ended, when we heard the war had ended, and I know that it is not a place that Nigeria ever wants to go back to. So, let’s sit down in a very lovely environment where we have respect for one another and we are mindful of one another, our various interpretations of what we have heard and our various experiences and talk about it. “It is no longer the elephant in the room that nobody can talk about. We do not want to go back there. If you look at how we have public holidays for June 12 and even Independence Day on October 1, we should be able to have a day that we can apologize to one another, whether we did it or not. Apologize for the pain that the country went through, that our brethren went through, that we went through, and apologize and move on, because whether we like it or not, we are together, and the things that unite us are far better and more than what can divide us. Look at Ukraine and Russia; they were once a part of one another, but look at how they’re going at each other. If we all go three ways, maybe more ways, we would be more of a threat divided, in my own opinion, and so we will never get back there.” Other personalities and books of the festival include: Mazi Nwonwu and his How to Make a Space Masquerade and Dele Sijuade’s Orisa will be in conversation for the speculative fiction panel. Also, Ndidi Chiazor-Enenmor’s See Morocco See Spain, Silva Nze Ifedigbo’s My Mind Is No Longer Here and Samuel Monye’s Give Us this Day, Henry Akubuiro’s Mighty Mite and Golden Jewel will feature in the children’s session, among others. Also, Moonbeam: An Anthology of Short Stories by Nigeria’s Foremost Culture Journalists (published by Narrative Landscape Press) will be unveiled at QFest 2025, with some of the contributors like Sam Omatseye, Adeniyi Kunu, Okechukwu Uwaezuoke, Terh Agbedeh and Henry Akubuiro featuring, and moderated by the editor Anote Ajeluorou. They will speak on ‘The Place of Anthologies/Collection of Short Stories in a Literary Ecosystem’. This anthology, the first by 15 culture journalists united in their singular passion for culture reporting such as Jahman Anikulapo, Toni Kan, Molara Wood, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Nehru Odeh, Evelyn Osagie (rest her soul), Sumaila Isa Umaisha, Greg Nwakunor and Akeem Lasisi, has been hailed as a bold cultural shift and boundary-defining.