The 2026 CANEX Prize for Publishing has announced its longlist, with 13 books from publishers across Africa and the Caribbean advancing to the next stage. The list spans novels rooted in Nigerian and Mozambican history, an Arabic-language novel from Chad, Caribbean history and food writing, poetry, memoir, speculative fiction, children’s literature, and first-person testimony from the Boko Haram conflict, drawing together established independent presses and smaller houses from across both regions.

The prize is part of Afreximbank’s CANEX Book Factory, a programme also encompassing a creative writing workshop for emerging writers and the CANEX Book Fair. Rather than judging a book on its writing alone, CANEX weighs the editorial work, design, production, innovation, and distribution behind each title, aiming to invest in publishers that produce, own, circulate, and monetize African and Caribbean intellectual property. The winning publisher receives $20,000; each of the other four finalists receives $2,000.

The 13 books on the longlist:

  • South Side by Akin Adesokan — Parresia Publishers Limited
  • Sumanguru: Sorcerer King of Sosso by Naa-Adei Kotey, illustrated by Enkush Sergelen — Masobe Books
  • The Bone River by Nkereuwem Albert — Ouida Books
  • The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson — Cassava Republic Press
  • The World Was in Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict by Chitra Nagarajan — Cassava Republic Press
  • An Unconquerable Spirit: The Indigenous Resistance to Colonisation in the Caribbean Windward Islands by Helen Pauline Francis-Seaman, edited by Alan Cobley — Ian Randle Publishers Ltd
  • Beneath the Scar by Bento Baloi, translated by Sandra Tamele — Editora Trinta Zero Nove
  • Born at the End of the World by Donica Merhazion — eKitabu LLC
  • End & Beginning by Athol Williams — Karavan Press
  • Mixing Memory & Desire: How History Shaped the Foods of the Caribbean by Lee Johnson — Ian Randle Publishers Ltd
  • From London to Jos: A British Man’s 60-year Journey to Becoming Nigerian by David Jowitt — Masobe Books
  • التاريخ السري المعلن لآدم حواء by Rozzi Djiddi — Sefsafa Culture & Publishing
  • Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business by Femi Otedola — FO Books Publishing Ltd

Albert’s The Bone River turns Calabar into the setting for an urban fantasy of necromancers, deities, and ancient bloodlines, while Kotey’s Sumanguru introduces younger readers to the legendary ruler of the Sosso Empire through illustrated historical storytelling. Francis-Seaman’s An Unconquerable Spirit recovers the resistance of Kalinago, Garifuna, and Maroon communities to European colonization in the Caribbean, and Johnson’s Mixing Memory & Desire traces Caribbean culinary culture through migration, enslavement, and colonialism.

Nagarajan’s The World Was in Our Hands gathers testimony from people who’ve lived through the Boko Haram conflict, while Baloi’s Beneath the Scar, translated from Portuguese by Sandra Tamele, confronts post-independence Mozambique through exile, political violence, and survival. On the life-writing side, Jowitt’s From London to Jos recounts his six decades in Nigeria and eventual path to Nigerian citizenship, and Otedola’s Making It Big blends memoir with reflections on entrepreneurship and recovery. Djiddi’s التاريخ السري المعلن لآدم حواء, published in Arabic by Egypt’s Sefsafa Culture & Publishing, uses N’Djamena and modern Chadian history to explore identity and political upheaval.

Finalists will be selected from the longlist ahead of CANEX WKND 2026 in Lagos, November 5–8, where the winning publisher will be announced. Congratulations to all 13 authors and their publishers!