Divine Inyang Titus has been selected as the winner of the 2024 Toyin Falola Prize for his story “Fibers from the Deep.” He was chosen from a pool of 300 submissions from across Africa and the diaspora. As a writer previously published by Brittle Paper, we’re particularly proud to celebrate this achievement and see his talent recognized.

Titus becomes the second Nigerian to win the prize, following Abdulrahim Hussani’s win in 2022. He wins $1000 USD with an invitation to the BIGSAS Festival of African and African Diasporic Literatures at Bayreuth in Germany.

“Fibers from the Deep” is about a protagonist struggling with “existential dilemmas, family turmoil, trauma, detachment, loss, and spiritual crises—particularly following the death of his brother and the breakdown of his family.”

The judges, Professor Gilbert Ndi-Shang and Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto, praised the story for how it “skillfully balances humor, spiritual conflict, tragedy, and existential questioning,” remarking that “the power of the story lies in its raw authenticity, its ability to evoke both empathy and introspection, making it a deserving winner in this contest.”

Titus’ work has been widely published in literary outlets such as Brittle Paper, The Ex-Puritan Magazine, and Blue Marbles Review. He is also the author of the chapbook A Beautiful Place To Be Born and a past winner of the STCW Future Folklore Climate Fiction Contest (2021).

The Toyin Falola Prize is administered by Lunaris Review and named after the distinguished African historian Professor Toyin Falola. It celebrates exceptional African writers aged 15 to 35.This year’s prize was theme “the sacred. It invited submissions that offered “broad and bold interpretations.” Divine’s story stood out for the way it captured broader issues concerning violence, poverty, and the “tensions between tradition and modernity.”

Congratulations to Divine Inyang Titus for this well-deserved recognition!