The African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Evaristo Prize for African Poetry.
Formerly known as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, the prize continues its tradition of spotlighting powerful new pieces by emerging African poets.
This year’s shortlist features five standout poets whose works were selected from a wide range of submissions received during the reading period. The 2025 shortlisted poets are:
- Jeremy Karn (Liberia) for Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother?
- Prosper Ifeanyi (Nigeria) for All Those Losses
- Akumbu Uche (Nigeria) for A Dying Man’s Wish and other poems
- Ameen Animashaun (Nigeria) for Song
- Chiwenite Onyekwelu (Nigeria) for On Memory and Forgetting
The Evaristo Prize, awarded annually with a cash prize of $1,500, honors a portfolio of ten poems by an African poet writing in English. Originally founded in 2012 by British-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo, the prize was renamed in her honor and has been administered by the African Poetry Book Fund since 2022.
This year’s judging panel comprising poet and academic Tjawangwa Dema (Chair), critic and scholar Tsitsi Jaji, and writer and visual artist Mahtem Shiferraw praised the submissions for their originality. In their collective statement, the judges remarked:
“One can begin to discern the emergence of clear strands of distinctive formal and thematic innovation and one can begin to describe contemporary African Anglophone poetics… There is no, nor should there be, a formula for a prize-winning poem, at least none that we sought from the outset. Instead, the poems revealed themselves reading by reading. With each poem inviting us to assess it against its own artistic ambition.”
Bernardine Evaristo, who established the prize to nurture African poetry on a global scale, is a renowned writer and the current President of the UK’s Royal Society of Literature. She serves as Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and is the author of ten books across fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism.
The APBF looks forward to announcing the winner of the 2025 Evaristo Prize in May.
Congratulations to all shortlisted writers!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
