Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah has been honoured with the 2026 Flora Nwapa Literary Society Award, becoming the second Zimbabwean writer after Tsitsi Dangarembga to receive the honour.
Gappah announced the news on X, writing:
“I’m thrilled to be the 2026 recipient of the Flora Nwapa Literary Society Award. I’m honoured to be given an award that honours the first African woman ever published.”
She added:
“I’m also stoked beyond belief as the award was also given to one of my household goddesses, Toni Morrison.”
First presented in 1997, the Flora Nwapa Literary Society Award recognises distinguished trailblazers in writing, publishing, scholarship, and leadership across Africa and the diaspora. Previous recipients include Toni Morrison, Professor Mĩcere Githae Mũgo, and Umari Ayim.
The award is named after Nigerian writer and publisher Flora Nwapa, whose novel Efuru, published in 1966, made her the first African woman to publish an English-language novel internationally. She was also the first African woman to establish and run a publishing house.
Patina Gappah is the author of the short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), which was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Orwell Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.
She later published the novel The Book of Memory (2015), the short story collection Rotten Row (2016), and the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light (2019).
Her honours include the Guardian First Book Award, the McKitterick Prize, the Chautauqua Prize, and Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award.
Congratulations, Patina Gappah!
