African Writer's Residency Award

This award in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut offers a two month international working stay at the Foundation to writers of contemporary African literature, who are related to or engaging with contemporary themes and concerns of Africa and the African Diaspora.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
© Jill Jennings

Nigerian writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is spending the months of June and July 2017 on the island of Sylt. He is the 2016 winner of the Goethe-Institut & Sylt Foundation African Writer´s Residency Award (AWRA).

Award winning writer and journalist Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is the author of the acclaimed short story collection, The Whispering Trees, (Parresia Publishers, Lagos, 2012) currently being used as study text in several Nigerian universities. He is listed by the Hay Festival in the Africa39 list of the most promising African writers under 40 who will shape the future of writing on the continent. In addition to winning the BBC African Performance Prize, he has been shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing and long listed for the Etisalat Prize for ProseHe is a 2015 Civitella Ranieri Fellow, a 2013 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow, 2013 and 2014 Caine Prize Fellow and a Fellow of the British Council Radiophonics programme (among others). His radio play has been broadcast by the BBC World Service and his fictions have been published in various reputable media. He currently works as the Arts Editor for the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspaper. He has been a judge for the Writivism Short story competition (2014) The Short Story Day Africa competition (2015) and the Eitisalat Flash Fiction Prize (2015) and has spoken at various international literature festivals.

With his debut novel Season of Crimson Blossoms Abubakar Adam Ibrahim won the $100,000 NLNG Nigeria Prize For Literature 2016.

The Goethe-Institut & Sylt Foundation African Writer´s Residency Award (AWRA) offers a two month international working stay at the Foundation to writers of contemporary African literature, who are related to or engaging with contemporary themes and concerns of Africa and the African Diaspora.

in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut
www.goethe.de