It is the pleasure of the Journal of African Youth Literature (JAY Lit) to recognise excellence, and to honour the finest voices published in our journal. Starting in 2024, the JAY Lit Awards recognizes the best work published in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, across all of the journal’s issues every calendar year. The awards categories are “JAY Lit Prize for Poetry”, “JAY Lit Prize for Fiction”, and “JAY Lit Prize for Non-Fiction”.
The issues under consideration for the 2025 JAY Lit Awards are JAY Lit Issue 9 and Issue 10, the journal’s two issues published in 2025.
The Judging Process and the 2025 Judges
The Awards are judged in three tiers.
The overall winners are selected from the shortlists by tier 1 judges—external guest judges who are reputable names and voices in all three award categories. For the 2025 edition of the JAY Lit Awards, these tier 1 judges are Bash Amuneni (Poetry), Eugen Bacon (Fiction), and Frances Ogamba (Non-Fiction).
Bash Amuneni is an Architect and Poet. 2025 Poet in Residence at Portsmouth FC, England and Director of Programs of Abuja Literary Society. Bash is the Nigerian ambassador to the World Poetry Slam Organisation and African Cup of Slam Poetry. He is a seasoned poet who has trained over 500+ young poets in performance poetry since 2017 and has been a guest at tens of reputable literary festivals all over the world.
Eugen Bacon, a Tanzanian-born author, is a Solstice, British Fantasy, Ignyte, Locus and Foreword Indies Award winner. She’s also a twice World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and a finalist in the Philip K. Dick Award and the Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and was also announced on the honor list for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Her collection Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. She’s an Adjunct Fellow at the University of Tasmania, and a 2024 Hedberg Writer-in-Residence.
Frances Ogamba is a 2025 Mercatus Center’s Don Lavoie Fellow at George Mason University, a 2025 Tin House Scholar, a 2024 Jacobson Scholar at the Hawkinson Foundation for Peace and Justice, and a 2024 Miles Morland Writing Scholar. She is a recipient of the 2025 Diversity Grant from Horror Writers Association, 2024 Walter H. Judd Travel Fellowship, the 2024 COGS Research grant, and the 2022 College of Liberal Arts Fellowship from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The JAY Lit Awards shortlists are selected by tier 2 judges who whittle down individual longlists in their respective categories. The tier 2 judges are made up of JAY Lit category editors: Gabriel Awuah Mainoo (poetry), Deborah Oluniran-Adeniyi (Fiction), and Iruoma Chukwuemeka (Non-Fiction). Candidates who make it to the shortlists in all three categories are automatic winners of the “JAY Lit Editor’s Choice Commendation”.
The longlists are determined by tier 3 judges made up of JAY Lit peer reviewers and guest editors. These judges nominate the best stories they read from any of the issues published in a calendar year. For the 2025 Awards, these judges are our peer reviewers, namely Tobi Ojenike, Aishat Adesanya, Bongiwe T. Maphosa, Anna Samwel, and Nneamaka Onochie, as well as interns who served on the editorial team of JAY Lit Issues 9 and Issue 10, Hope Tare, Onyeche Ada Onobu, and Mustapha Bamaiya Yahaya.
JAY Lit Prize for Poetry – 2025 Shortlist (and Longlist)
“The B(lack)ody as a Map to Self” by Mariam Mohammed (Issue 9)
“Battery’s Scent” by Anna Zgambo (Issue 9)
“Remembrance” by Ferdinand Emmanuel Somtochukwu (Issue 10)
“The Cub Who Sought a Cherub” by Princewill Ticha (Issue 10)
These shortlisted poems and the ones listed below made up the poetry longlist:
“Red” by I Echo (Issue 9)
“Damp Lines and Canvas” by Star Zahra (Issue 10)
“Spontaneity” by Mungai Njenga M’mbogori (Issue 10)
“One More Night with My Dead Father” by Olusegun Ajayi (Issue 10)
“Coming Home is Now a Journey into the Throat of Leviathan” by Godwin Obaji (Issue 10)
“Self-Portrait as an Unforgiving Son” by Isaac Kanyinji (Issue 10)
JAY Lit Prize for Fiction – 2025 Shortlist (and Longlist)
“All Things Go” by Fatima Okhuosami (Issue 9)
“The Grand Funeral of Baba Alamu” by Olayinka Yaqub (Issue 9)
“The One Who Works in the Garden” by Fiske Nyirongo (Issue 10)
These shortlisted stories and the ones listed below made up the fiction longlist:
“Ndakasiya Mwana Wangu” by Harrison Ncube (Issue 9)
“That Nkana Skyline” by Bwalya S. Kondwani (Issue 9)
“Trouble at the Tailor’s” by Nnamdi Anyadu (Issue 10)
“Salvation Street” by Cynthia Nnenna Nnadi (Issue 10)
“Bad People” by Mukandi Siame (Issue 10)
“Frigid” by Mali Kambandu (Issue 10)
JAY Lit Prize for Non-Fiction – 2025 Shortlist
“Duala Living” by Rukayat Ogunlana (Issue 9)
“Poems Holding My Hand” by Naomi Nduta Waweru (Issue 10)
“The Architecture of Promises” by Taslimah Woli (Issue 10)
(This category does not have a longlist due to the sample size which is considered too small)
Further Updates on the 2025 JAY Lit Awards
The winners will be announced in the 2nd week of April 2026.
Overall winners will share from a modest pool of prize money. All shortlistees will receive books and other rewards.
For support and enquiries, please email JAY Lit Managing Editor, Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim at ibrahim.ibrahim@jaylit.com
