Ugandan-Canadian writer Otoniya J. Okot Bitek has been named to the 2025 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist for her novel We, The Kindling, published by Alchemy by Knopf Canada.
She joins thirteen other authors whose works were selected from more than 100 submissions across the country.
Juliane Okot Bitek, also known as Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, is a Kenyan-born, Ugandan-raised diasporic writer and academic who lives, studies, and works in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is best known for her poetry book 100 Days, a reflection on the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu people were killed. She has also contributed to several anthologies, including New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent (2019), edited by Margaret Busby.
This year’s Giller Prize jury chaired by fiction writer Dionne Irving, alongside authors Loghan Paylor and Deepa Rajagopalan praised the longlisted books for illuminating “the everyday and the otherworldly” and for capturing the “funny, sad, joyful, and complicated times” in which readers find themselves.
The shortlist for the 2025 Giller Prize will be announced on October 6, 2025, with the winner revealed during a live broadcast on November 17, 2025, on CBC TV, CBC Gem, and CBC Radio.
The winner will receive a two-week residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, as well as an appearance at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference in Mexico.
Congratulations, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
