Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling 2018 winner.
The prestigious award is given by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. It was established in 2016 in honor of Michael Elliott, an outstanding editor and philanthropist whose life was a testament to the power of storytelling to bear witness to and improve the human condition. The prize aims to advance the work of an emerging journalist covering Africa who strives to strengthen people’s voices and improve their well-being. The inaugural winner was Kenyan health reporter Mercy Juma.
His story All That Was Familiar, published in Granta magazine in May 2017 puts a human face on a story often expressed in numbers: More than 2 million people from northeastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon and southern Niger have been internally displaced since Boko Haram began its insurgency. Ibrahim tells about the struggle of two women, one from Cameroon and one from Nigeria, to find their loved ones and return home.
This isn’t the first time that Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s storytelling has won him recognition. He won the Nigerian Prize for Literature 2016 for his novel Season of Crimson Blossoms walking away with the US$100,000 prize money.
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