Masobe Books has announced the acquisition of Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim’s debut work of fiction, Dear Descendant(s). The publisher has also revealed the cover of the forthcoming book, which is set to be released on March 18, 2027.
Set in the 1870’s, Alabi sits down to write a letter to descendants he will never meet. He has one impossible request: if anyone in the future ever learns how to fold time, they must come back for him. Together, they will save the woman he loved and rewrite the greatest regret of his life.
That extraordinary letter becomes the beginning of an unforgettable journey across generations. Through the lives of Alabi’s descendants, history unfolds in intimate, deeply human stories of love and loss, slavery and colonialism, faith and folklore, war and migration, oppression and resilience. Each generation inherits more than blood; they inherit unfinished stories, impossible choices, and the enduring hope that tomorrow might heal yesterday.
Richly woven with Yoruba history, mythology and culture, Dear Descendant(s) is a sweeping collection of interconnected stories that traces the African experience across more than two centuries. At once epic and intimate, it is a powerful meditation on ancestry, memory, and the legacies we leave behind for those who come after us.
An award-winning writer and JAY Lit’s managing editor, Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim’s work has appeared in Typehouse Magazine, Adi Magazine, JMWW, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere.
Among other honours, he has won the American Literary Review Award, the Creative Future Writers’ Award, and the Quramo Writers’ Prize. His work has been selected for the Best Small Fictions anthology and has been a finalist for the Faber Children’s FAB Prize, the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship, the George Garrett Fiction Prize, the Masters Review anthology prize, and twice for the Moon City Short Fiction Award.
He has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the CRAFT Short Story Prize, the Laura Kinsella Fellowship, and the Dzanc Diverse Voices Prize.
Dear Descendant(s) will be released on March 18, 2027.
Congratulations, Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim, on this huge win!
