Four writers have been selected from the shortlist of 20, which had earlier been drawn out of 500 entries from across Africa and the diaspora.
The winners each receive a grant of ₤18,000 to allow them to take a year off to write a book. The awards are based on submissions which include a book proposal and an excerpt of published writing.
The 2024 Morland Writing Scholars are:
Carey Baraka (Kenya)
Fayssal Bensalah (Algeria)
Yvette Ndlovu (Zimbabwe)
Frances Ogamba (Nigeria)
Miles Morland, owner of the Foundation, commented, “Once more we have a diverse group of outstanding writers, one each from Nigeria, Algeria (our first Algerian scholar), Zimbabwe, and Kenya. They have very different stories to tell. Their subjects are fascinating, opening doors to areas most of us know nothing about. It looks like 2024 will be a vintage year.”
Each selected writer will be developing a riveting work of prose over the course of twelve months. Baraka’s nonfiction account of the Shakahola cult killings examines the lives lost, survivors’ stories, and the socio-political roots of religious extremism in East Africa. Bensalah will write a darkly absurd satire on colonialism and environmental devastation, following a flamboyant French colonel’s surreal journey through 1950s Algeria. Ndlovu offers an AfroSurrealist fable of resistance, following a journalist-turned-revolutionary in a fictional Zimbabwe haunted by its resurrected dictator. Ogamba’s speculative novel is about a man whose memory is severed by a spiritual spell, only to rediscover his identity decades later after a fatal accident.
The Miles Morland Foundation was established in 2013 with the aim of supporting entities in Africa which allow Africans to get their voices better heard, with a prime focus on African literature. The Foundation has supported literary festivals in Africa, London’s Film Africa Festival, the Caine Prize for African Writing, several African educational initiatives and the new Rhodes Scholarships for Africans. It has also supported several human rights organisations, an array of London theatres, Oxford University women’s lightweight rowing, projects in Haiti and Palestine, a literacy initiative in London’s Shoreditch, plus several schemes which help recovering addicts and detained prisoners in the UK.
© 2021 The British Blacklist.
