The African Poetry Book Fund has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Evaristo Prize for African Poetry, celebrating ten exceptional poems by African poets. Formerly known as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, the Evaristo Prize continues its legacy of spotlighting innovative poetic voices from across the continent.

2025 Shortlist

Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? —Jeremy Karn (Liberia)

All Those Losses –Prosper Ifeanyi (Nigeria)

A Dying Man’s Wish and other poems –Akumbu Uche (Nigeria)

Song –Ameen Animashanun (Nigeria)

On Memory and Forgetting –Chiwenite Onyekwelu (Nigeria)

This year’s judging panel—Tjawangwa Dema (Chair), Tsitsi Jaji, and Mahtem Shiferraw—commended the high quality of submissions received during the reading period. Reflecting on the selection process, the judges note:

one can begin to discern the emergence of clear strands of distinctive formal and thematic innovation and one can begin to describe a contemporary African Anglophone poetics…. As we see it, there is no, nor should there be, a formula for a prize-winning poem, or at least none that we sought from the outset. Instead, the poems revealed themselves reading by reading. With each poem inviting us to assess it against its own artistic ambition.

The Evaristo Prize awards $1,500 annually to a single winner chosen from the shortlisted poets. Founded in 2012 as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize by celebrated British writer Bernardine Evaristo, the prize was renamed in her honor and has been administered by the African Poetry Book Fund since 2022. Evaristo, currently President of the UK’s Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, is a celebrated author of ten books spanning fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism.

The winner of the 2025 Evaristo Prize will be announced in May.