South African press Inkani Books has announced the Andrée Blouin Prize for nonfiction manuscripts written by women on the African continent. Entries for the prize close 30 April 2025, midnight SAST. The winner will be announced in November 2025.

Inkani Prize invites submissions from African women (both cis and transgender) who write about history, politics, or current affairs from a left perspective. The prize foregrounds voices of colour but is open to all women living on the African continent. The winner of the Andrée Blouin Prize will receive an advance of $2,000 and a publishing contract with Inkani Books.

The prize is named for Andrée Blouin (1921–1986), a political activist and writer from the Central African Republic who was crucial to the fight for independence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Once described as ‘the most dangerous woman in Africa’ by a Belgian official, importance remained unrecognized until recently, like many other African women whose stories were covered over by masculine grand narratives of freedom. This prize honors Blouin’s legacy and challenges her erasure. As the Pan Africa newsletter announcing the prize says, “This prize is not just an accolade; it is a reclamation of space, a declaration that African revolutionary women’s narratives will no longer be sidelined.”

Inkani Books, a project of Tricontinental Pan-Africa, is a people’s movement-driven publishing house in Johannesburg, South Africa. It publishes accessible books that intervene in the Battle of Ideas, and discussions around the contemporary dilemmas of humanity, with a focus on pan-African themes, Marxism, and struggles in the Global South.

With this prize, they are looking for manuscripts that share Blouin’s “fierce spirit of resistance.”

Submission guidelines:

  1. Any female African citizen based on the African continent who is over the age of 18 may enter.
  2. Writers may only submit ONE entry. Repeat entries by the same writer will all be disqualified.
  3. Submissions must be a maximum of 50,000 words or 150 pages in length.
  4. Manuscripts must be submitted in English. While you are free to incorporate other languages into your manuscript, it must be understood fully by its English content.
  5. Simultaneous submissions are not welcome. Any manuscript entered or published elsewhere during the course of judging and publication will be disqualified. The manuscript must not have been previously published (traditionally or self-published) as a book in any format.
  6. To facilitate easy reading and judging, please format your submissions according to the format stipulated here: https://inkanibooks.co.za/prizes/.
  7. The judges’ decision is final.
  8. Inkani Books reserves the right not to issue the prize in a given year if there are no satisfactory entries.
  9. By submitting a manuscript the author attests that it is their own original work and grants exclusive global print and digital rights to Tricontinental Pan-Africa and the African Union of Left Publishers from the date of signing their contract. The author attests that their manuscript was not created using the help of generative AI.
  10. We will add you to our mailing list to provide updates about the prize including the longlist and winner.

Contact Efemia Chela at info@inkanibooks.co.za for any queries.

See a full list of guidelines and submissions here.  Submit your manuscripts here.