African Literary Person of the Year

Brittle Paper‘s African Literary Person of the Year recognizes an individual who has done outstanding work in advancing the African literary industry and culture in the given year.

The Award was established in 2015 to celebrate a literary personality who elevated African literary culture in outstanding ways. But over the years, we’ve shifted the focus to individuals who work behind the scenes to hold up the African literary establishment in the given year.

We wanted to create a space for honoring literary figures who are not necessarily authors. Authors have lots of prizes and awards, but what about the people behind the scenes running festivals, creating platforms, selling books, publishing books, running prize? These are the people we want to celebrate — those doing all the institutional heavy lifting to make African literature thrive.