The Morland Foundation has announced four new Morland Writing Scholars for 2025, selected from more than 800 entries submitted by published authors from across Africa and the diaspora.
The 2025 Morland Writing Scholars are:
- Adeola Opeyemi, Nigeria
- Carlo Saio, Kenya
- Chinelo Onwualu, Nigeria
- Monique Eleanor Kwachou, Cameroon
Each of the four winners will receive a grant of £18,000 to take a year off to write a book. The awards are based on submissions that include a book proposal and an excerpt of published writing.
In his words, Miles Morland commented:
“As we move into the second decade of our African Writing Scholarships, I am amazed every year by the diversity, wit, imagination, and energy coming out of African writing. I have a feeling these new scholars are all going to write books you will want to read.”
Chief judge Muthoni Garland offered detailed remarks on why the scholars were selected, saying:
“Selected for this year’s Morland African Writers’ Scholarships are four writers whose projects showcase literary ambition and cultural depth. Adeola Opeyemi (Nigeria): Her multigenerational Nigerian novel explores inherited silence and male fragility through the lens of a family haunted by their matriarch’s mysterious 1967 disappearance. Carlo Saio (Kenya): His 7,500 km walking memoir traces ancient Bantu migration routes across Sub-Saharan Africa while documenting a personal journey of healing. Chinelo Onwualu (Nigeria): Her West African climate-fiction novel reimagines ‘first contact’ from the perspective of an isolated community that possesses foreknowledge of the impact of colonialism. Monique Eleanor Kwachou (Cameroon): Her memoir, spanning early years between Cameroon and the United States and her return home at thirteen, tells of a childhood shaped by separation, diaspora, and self-making, and promises work of real moral complexity. The judges are honoured to have engaged with their work, and it affirms that the continent’s literary future is in capable hands.”
The selected scholars will spend the year working on the manuscripts proposed in their applications, supported by the foundation’s annual programme.
Congratulations, Adeola Opeyemi, Carlo Saio, Chinelo Onwualu, Monique Eleanor Kwachou!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
