The Morland Writing Scholarships 2024 winners were announced on Friday, November 22, 2024.
The Morland Writing Scholarships for African Writers, popularly referred to as the Morland Writing Scholarship, is an opportunity to allow writers to finish a manuscript. In the past, the scholarship has been accorded to writers from across the continent like Yewande Omotoso, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Gloria Mwaniga Odari, Hawa Jande Golakai, Nnamdi Oguike, and Parsalelo ole Kantai. Muhammad L. Kejera (Gambia), Neema Komba (Tanzania), Chido Muchemwa (Zimbabwe), Chika Oduah (Nigeria), and Lanre Otaiku (Nigeria) were the recipients in 2022. Rafeeat Aliyu, Mubanga Kalimamukwento, Kiprop Kimutai, and Remy Ngamije were the recipients in 2023.
The shortlist for 2024 was announced on Monday, October 14 before the were made public today.
Miles Morland commented, “Once more we have a diverse group of outstanding writers, one each from Nigeria, Algeria (our first Algerian scholar), Zimbabwe, and Kenya. They have very different stories to tell. Their subjects are fascinating, opening doors to areas most of us know nothing about. It looks like 2024 will be a vintage year.”
Muthoni Garland, head judge, said: “Thank you, all, and Miles most of all, for making this happen. I am honoured to be a part of this process of giving this amazing opportunity to our best writers once again.
The winners are;
- Carey Baraka, Kenya – nonfiction account of the Shakahola cult killings examines the lives lost, survivors’ stories, and the socio-political roots of religious extremism in East Africa.
- Fayssal Bensalah, Algeria – a darkly absurd satire on colonialism and environmental devastation, following a flamboyant French colonel’s surreal journey through 1950s Algeria.
- Yvette Ndlovu, Zimbabwe – an AfroSurrealist fable of resistance, following a journalist-turned-revolutionary in a fictional Zimbabwe haunted by its resurrected dictator.
- Frances Ogamba, Nigeria – speculative novel is about a man whose memory is severed by a spiritual spell, only to rediscover his identity decades later after a fatal accident. It explores the Japa (migration) phenomenon through the lenses of memory, and the reclamation of African traditions through Igbo spirituality and ancestral justice.”
Reactions
A 2024 Miles Morland Writing Scholar! I am reeling! I always think of @Writivism as my beginning. They do such beautiful work of finding diamonds in the rough! I am so grateful for everyone and everything that led me to this point where MMF became something attainable. ❤️
Frances Ogamba
(It’s) been a season of Ls & rejections😭Thanks to the Miles Morland Foundation for the support to work on a new project in a genre I’m calling Postcolonial Ngano about dictator Mugabe rising from the dead to rule forever set in a fictional country called New Zimbabwe 🙂 congrats all!
Yvette Ndlovu
It makes me happy that I have joined the Miles Morland Foundation family as one of their scholars. Thank you very much!
Fayssal Bensalah
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