The Nigeria Prize for Literature has narrowed its 2026 poetry field down to a shortlist of three: James Ngwu Eze’s Unbind Me Now, Ogaga Ifowodo’s Why Does God Need a Gun?, and Tares Oburumu’s Flora’s Love Colony. The three collections were selected from an initial pool of 223 entries, first cut down to a longlist of eleven in July — which also included work from Adedayo Agarau, Tanure Ojaide, Theresa Lola, and Saddiq Dzukogi, among others — before this final narrowing. Sponsored by NLNG and widely regarded as one of the world’s most valuable literary awards, the prize carries a purse of $100,000 for its winner, with the announcement expected in the coming weeks.

Each of the three finalists brings a distinct register to this year’s contest. Eze’s Unbind Me Now, published by Masobe Books is a fierce, unrelenting collection that moves through political violence, ancestral memory, exile, and ecological collapse with what the Advisory Board called fluid and aesthetically captivating language, examining sociopolitical dysfunction in Nigeria and beyond while probing the human condition and the possibility of redemption. Enugu-born and the pioneer literary editor of Sunday Sun, Eze previously won the ANA Poetry Prize for his debut collection Dispossessed, and Unbind Me Now marks his third collection and second appearance on this prize’s longlist since 2022.

Ifowodo’s Why Does God Need a Gun? listens for voices nearly erased, schoolgirls stolen in the night, prayers drowned by gunfire, a forest that becomes both prison and mirror, confronting religious and political violence in Nigeria through what the board described as a rich allegorical style. Ifowodo, a lawyer and one of Nigeria’s most established poets, has previously won the ANA/Cadbury and ANA/Gabriel Okara poetry prizes and received the PEN USA Barbara Goldsmith Freedom-to-Write Award; Brittle Paper covered Masobe Books’ announcement of this title back in December 2025, ahead of its March 2026 release, and shared an excerpt from the collection at the time.

Rounding out the shortlist, Oburumu’s Flora’s Love Colony takes on Nigeria’s troubled history and the lingering structural weight of colonial exploitation, described by the board as a socio-historical work that challenges mainstream narratives through dense, lucid imagery. Critics have noted the collection’s meditation on interracial affairs and cultural boundary-crossing as a throughline for its broader argument about who benefits, and who is undone, by empire’s long aftershocks. The Advisory Board, chaired by Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, said the selection process, judged on language, form, originality, craftsmanship, and enduring literary value, reflected the depth of contemporary Nigerian poetry this year.

Read Brittle Paper’s earlier coverage of Ogaga Ifowodo’s Why Does God Need a Gun?, including selected excerpts from the collection, here.