longlist profile Afritondo short story prize 2022

Sabah Carrim | Mauritius

Sabah has authored two novels, and her shorter work has been selected in a variety of international competitions, namely the AfroYoung Adult Short Story Competition, Bristol Short Story Prize, Not-So-Normal-Narrators contest, Gabriele Rico Challenge for Creative Nonfiction and the Small Islands Anthology Contest. She has a PhD in Genocide Studies and was awarded the W. Morgan and Lou Claire Rose Fellowship for an MFA in Creative Writing in the United States.

Lynsey Ebony Chutel | South Africa

Lynsey Ebony Chutel is a writer and journalist living in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a journalist, she covers a continent in flux, through the lens of politics, culture, gender and climate. She has travelled through more than a dozen African countries as a reporter. As a fiction writer, Lynsey Ebony is comfortable with admitting that she is still finding her voice, and is both terrified and exhilarated by the prospect that this may be a lifelong search.

Her essays on the historical and contemporary identity of South Africa’s descendants of the enslaved and indigenous people, known as Coloured South Africa, will appear in the forthcoming book Coloured: How Classification became Culture (published by Jonathan Ball). Her fiction has appeared in the literary journal Pank and her still evolving debut novel was shortlisted for the Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship.

Mazpa Ejikem | nigeria

Mazpa (he/him) survives in Nigeria, one day at a time. He is an award-winning physician and writer. His works have won the ALITFEST21 Prize for Short Stories, Collins Elesiro Prize for Fiction, and LIPFEST prize for Poetry among several other recognitions.

He describes himself as unapologetically content and willfully childish. You may follow him on Instagram and Twitter @mazpa_md.

Jocelyn Fryer | South Africa

Having majored in a masters in English Literature, Jocelyn is finally trying to find the words to bring to light the causes close to her heart. 

It is so far an eclectic collection of writing it can be said, from reframing conversations around mental health matters, being diagnosed and hospitalised at the age of 29 with bipolar disorder, to rescuing forgotten folklore and female heroines of literary days gone by, her curiosities and interests are vast. But always, she believes, she invests in stories that need telling, stories that need some hope. Her blog, www.myhumblepie.co.za, is a space for all her whims and wishes.

And at the ripe 'old' age of 37, she has begun to try her hand full time at fiction, besides her blogging, to tell her story in all its guises, a story made of many stories of recovery, a story of suffering, but also, of joy. Hope. Beyond this, in the fiction she writes now, wiser, she seeks to distil the marvels, the wonders, in even the very most ordinary. Recently, she published her first novella, Zimmer, on Amazon Kindle.

You can otherwise find her either barefoot in the kitchen or advocating the adoption of stray animals. That is, when she’s not battling the thorn in her side that is white heteronormative patriarchy or stigmas. Other times you'll find her at her best, enjoying a patch of grass by the wildflowers. 

Follow her on @FryerJocelyn on Twitter

or, alternatively with her other 'book baby': @bookendsportalfred on Instagram 

Finally, merrily feel free to befriend her on Facebook: Jocelyn Teri Fryer (for a curated experience of all her passions, a veritable rabbit hole to get lost down!)

Alain Patrick Irere Hirwa | rwanda

Alain Patrick Irere Hirwa is a Kigali-based communications guy who writes, among other things. He had a very religious upbringing, which gave him the audacity to get creative with spirituality through his writing, in an attempt to find answers to meagerly formulated questions. If he isn’t sitting in a boring office, with headsets on, typing at a questionably slow speed for someone who wants to be a writer, you can always find him with a small camera in his hands, chasing some cool shot of coffee cherries in the rural area. Nyabingi is Awake is Alain Patrick’s first short story.

Somto Ihezue | nigeria

Somto Ihezue is an Igbo writer, filmmaker, and wildlife enthusiast. A Nommo Award nominee and winner of the African Youth Network Movement Fiction Contest, his works have appeared or are forthcoming in Tordotcom: Africa Risen Anthology, Fireside Magazine, Omenana Magazine, Cossmass Infinities, OnSpec Magazine, The 2021 Year’s Best Anthology of African Speculative Fiction, Ibua Journal, Africa In Dialogue, and others. He is an associate editor at Cast of Wonders and tweets @somto_Ihezue. He has a dog, River, and two cats, Salem and Ify.

Alex Kadiri | Nigeria

Alex Kadiri writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He is a graduate of English and Literary Studies and has been longlisted/shortlisted for Stories of the Nature of Cities, Koffi Addo Prize for Nonfiction, Awele Creative Trust, Problem House Press etc. He has contributed fiction at ShortSharpShort, WordsAreWork, Whipik and Afreada.

He was the winner of the Quramo Writers' Prize 2020 and is the author of Sunshower, a product of his award-winning manuscript. When he is not stringing words for make-believe worlds, Alex divides his time between binge-watching movies and reading quality fiction. Other times, he challenges people from around the world at chess or just goes swimming. 

Find him on Instagram via @alexwrites

Bwanga Kapumpa | zambia

Bwanga “Benny Blow” Kapumpa has been trying to publish a novel since he was eight. He would staple A4 paper in half, scribble new worlds between pages, and illustrate his covers. He is from Lusaka, Zambia.

He put his novelist aspirations on hold for years, studying to be a chartered accountant and blogging while grappling with imposter syndrome, until his short story, The Wandering Festival, was published in the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing’s anthology in 2016. He was shortlisted for the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship in 2020 and 2021.

In 2020, Bwanga diversified his work and has been learning about conceptual art with the Livingstone Office for Contemporary Art. Working as a freelance writer puts food on his table and affords him reasonably priced beer.

Bwanga is trying to tell more Zambian stories, inspired by folklore and any stranger-than-fiction real-life events. He hopes to inspire others to use their imagination.

Howard Meh-Buh Maximus | Cameroon

Howard is a Cameroonian writer and scientist. His work has appeared in anthologies as well as literary magazines. He is a winner of the Miles Morland Scholarship 2020, Kalahari Short Story Prize (2), and a semi-finalist for the Alpines Fellowship 2019. He is an awardee of the W. Morgan and Lou Claire Rose Fellowship, currently studying for an MFA in Fiction.

Obinna Obioma | Nigeria

Obinna Obioma is a ghost, liberal, Virgo, tutor and literary gigolo. He's had his fair share of long-suffering getting his obsessions & agitation into Writers Space Africa, Active Muse, Jacana, Lunaris, K and L, Love Africa Press, Poets In Nigeria, Brittle Paper, Akuko Magazine & elsewhere. There are other cravings forthcoming, and he doesn't promise they'd be the last. He has myopia and wears an unmedicated glass to deceive his own bad sight. He tweets @OOberyn or on any other media where his name and works pop up when you Google "Obinna Obioma Gigolo".

Victor Ola-Matthew | Nigeria

Victor Ola-Matthew is a Nigerian storyteller—films, screenplays, stage plays, prose, but no dancing—currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. A 2019 Quramo Junior Writers’ Prize finalist, his short story You, Me and Philadelphia appears in the debut issue of Cape Town-based literary magazine, Everyday Journal.

Raheem Omeiza | Nigeria

When he’s not arguing with strangers on the internet, Raheem reads, and writes when he’s tired of reading. He is a first-class graduate of Agriculture from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria where he majored in Agricultural Economics. His works are published or forthcoming in The Story Tree Challenge Maiden Anthology, Afritondo and elsewhere. His works explore boyhood, grief, sexuality and the liminal spaces where they intersect. Raheem Omeiza is Ebira and writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He tweets @raheem_omeiza on Twitter.

Uvile Memory Samkelisiwe Ximba | South Africa

Uvile is a writer and creative practitioner. She completed her Bachelor of Arts Honours in Politics and International Relations and Dramatic Arts. She was selected as an ASSITEJ South Africa ‘In The Works’ 2020 playwright, and worked as an intern at Sonke Gender Justice. 

Her research interest lies in issues affecting black LGBTQIA+ women in South Africa; her Honours thesis was on creative approaches as dialogue for LGBTQIA+ Intimate Partner Violence. This thesis, Beyond the rainbow: creative approaches as dialogue for LGBTQIA+ intimate partner violence, was published in the Journal Of Contemporary African Studies.

Uvile is the co-founder of a multimedia production company, Thamba Creatives, which tells women’s stories in South Africa. Her debut novel, Dreaming In Colour, does just that, telling the story of Langa, a young woman navigating relationships, self, and memory. It is Langa's story of coming out to herself, of discerning the history behind the closed door of conscious memory.

When it comes to her creativity, she prioritises interdisciplinary praxis and her stance is, “Why wait?” In another life, Uvile was a cat.