Troy Onyango, TJ Benson and Socrates Mbamalu are the latest recipients of the Ebedi International Writers Residency. They began their residency on May 2, 2018.
The Ebedi International Writers Residency Program is an initiative for writers wishing to complete their works in a conducive environment at no cost. The program which is affiliated with several international literary bodies including the Wole Soyinka Writers Residency in Abeokuta has hosted over 70 writers from six different countries since it was established seven years ago. Some previous beneficiaries of Ebedi include Doreen Baingana, A Igoni Barrett, and Yewande Omotoso.
The newest writers in the residency are Troy Onyango, TJ Benson and Socrates Mbamalu.
TJ Benson
The Nigerian writer and photographer Benson Tarfa Jason, who uses the writing name TJ Benson, will be returning to Ebedi having done the residency early in 2017. He has been published in the Kalahari Review, Munyori Journal, Sentinel Magazine, Paragram UK, Contemporary Literary Review India, Jalada Africa, African Hadithi, Expound magazine, Afridiaspora Journal as well as Transition Magazine. He also has a collection of prose-poetry and parables The Devil’s Music. In 2016, he won the AMAB House of Books contest as well as a publishing deal from the Saraba Manuscript Prize.
Socrates Mbamalu
Socrates Mbamalu was born in Nigeria and grew up in Kenya. His work has appeared in Waza Africa, Saraba Magazine, Deyu African, Kalahari Review, African Writer, Sankofa Mag, Jalada and Adda. He is a Saraba Nonfiction Manuscript Prize 2016 awardee. His Saraba nonfiction manuscript The Kenyan Boy is due for publication as an Ebook next year.
Troy Onyango
Kenyan writer Troy Onyango’s short story For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings? won the fiction prize for the inaugural Nyanza Literary Festival Prize. His short story The Transfiguration was nominated for the Pushcart Prize while his (unnamed) manuscript was shortlisted for the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship 2016. His work has also featured in the Kalahari Review, Wawa Book Review, This Is Africa, Caine Prize Anthology 2018 (forthcoming), AFREADA and many other publications. He is also the founding editor of Nairobi-based literary magazine Enkare Review.
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