Island Prize for a Debut Novel from Africa 2025 – YOA

Deadline: February 16, 2025

Calling all African writers! Apply now for the Island Prize for a Debut Novel from Africa 2025. The Island Prize is your OPPORTUNITY to breakthrough within the publishing world.

African writers are sometimes confronted with a double dose of challenges. Firstly, getting printed inside African nations could be extremely troublesome as a result of native publishers are sometimes constrained by funds. Secondly, for many writers getting printed abroad is sort of not possible as a result of the remainder of the world has sure concepts of what an African story needs to be. The Island Prize provides authors throughout the continent can achieve the arrogance to inform tales as they need.

Prizes

• Winner receives £500 and complete publishing assist
• Two runners-up get £200 every and customized manuscript suggestions

Eligibility

The Island Prize is open to African writers aged 18 and over, no matter place of residence.
For the needs of the competitors, they outline “African writers” as writers born in or having citizenship of any African nation.

• You should not be represented by a literary agent or presently underneath contract with a writer. If you obtain a proposal of illustration whereas your novel is into account, you will need to inform organisers instantly and withdraw.
• Non-fiction, poetry, and quick story collections, in addition to fiction for youngsters are NOT eligible.
• There is not any restriction as to particular style – something from literary fiction to crime thriller is welcome.
• The full novel needs to be between 35,000 phrases and 100,000 phrases.
• Entrants should not have beforehand printed a novel; this consists of self-printed or eBook-solely editions. To make clear: authors could have beforehand printed poetry collections, quick story collections, and non-fiction, BUT NOT A NOVEL.
• Authors who’re longlisted could also be required to provide proof of their eligibility. Personal info will probably be saved confidential.
• Pseudonyms could also be used, however longlisted authors will probably be requested to supply their given names. This will probably be saved confidential.
• Authors with manuscripts that they wish to see in full will probably be contacted by March 31, 2025 – although this date may need to be prolonged barely, relying on the amount of entries acquired. Authors have to be able to submit the total manuscript to us inside a couple of days of being contacted. They WILL NOT wait for authors to finish unfinished manuscripts, and their names will probably be eliminated from the longlist.
• The shortlisted authors will probably be introduced within the first week of May 2025.
• The winner will probably be introduced someday in mid-May 2025.

Application

Send the next to [email protected]:

• The first three chapters or 10,000 phrases of the novel;
• A protecting assertion giving the phrase rely, identify and handle of the creator, the title, and a temporary, two-sentence description of the primary topics and themes of the novel;
• A one-web page synopsis setting out the fundamental story.

Format:

• Entries needs to be in a easy font, dimension 12 – Times New Roman, Garamond, Arial, Calibri are all advantageous.
• Ensure entries are double or 1.5 spaced.
• All entries needs to be in Word doc or docx.

For extra info, go to Island Prize.