The Afritondo Short Story Prize is now accepting submissions for its 2026 edition. This year’s theme is “transition”, encompassing transformation, alteration, metamorphosis, adaptation, evolution, and the countless ways people, places, and systems move through change.

The prize invites writers to explore the complexities of becoming. What happens when communities, individuals, or systems transform into something else? How much change becomes unbearable? How do people respond to and learn from periods of transition? The organizers are seeking stories that surprise, take risks with imagination and language, offer unique interpretations of the theme, and reveal something unexpected about the human condition.

This year’s panel of judges brings impressive credentials to the selection process. Pete Kalu is a Manchester-based novelist, poet, and playwright who won the BBC Playwrights Award and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano (storyteller) whose debut collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells won the Cornell University Philip Freund Prize and was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. Fayssal Bensalah is an Algerian writer with a PhD from Cardiff University whose novel The Couscous Western was runner-up for the 2023 Graywolf African Fiction Prize.

The winner will receive $1,000, with four additional shortlisted writers receiving $100 each. The longlist will be published in an anthology. The prize is open to Black and African writers from anywhere in the world, with stories written in English and ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 words..

The deadline for submissions is December 23, 2025. Full terms and guidelines are available on the Afritondo website.