Nigerian author Samuel Kọ́láwọlé is one of the ten winners of the 2025 Whiting Award!

Whiting Awards hope to identify exceptional new writers who are just making their mark in the literary culture. Though the writers may not necessarily be young (talent may emerge at any age), the grant award of $50,000 ideally offers recipients a first opportunity to devote themselves fully to writing, and the recognition has a significant impact.

Kọ́láwọlé was recognized with a Whiting Award for his debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, which was a finalist for the International Book Awards, longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and is currently longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Other honors for his writing include being a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, and the UK’s First Novel Prize.

The selection committee had much praise for Kọ́láwọlé’s work:

Kọ́láwọlé dances back and forth across the borders of genre to craft a propulsive and humane thriller, populated by unforgettable characters whom he presents with unthinkable choices. In the hands of this wondrous storyteller, yearning and thwarted ambition raise predicament to the level of tragedy. His portrait of immigrants on the move through and toward the unknown melds gripping narrative with indelible testimony.

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University. 

He teaches fiction writing full time as an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. He also recently joined the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers as a faculty member. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania.