2025 ALEXANDER NDERITU PRIZE LONGLIST
By: ADMIN
08/02/2026
Nairobi, Kenya - TheAfricanGriot.com is excited to announce the longlist for the second Alexander Nderitu Prize for World Literature. The fifteen longlisted stories were selected from 266 entries (up from 73 the previous year) submitted from 23 countries worldwide.
In no particular order, the longlisted writers for the 2025 Alexander Nderitu Prize for World Literature are:
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Retreat in the Berkshires - Kate Schwartz (USA)
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Last Rites – Charlene Adhiambo (Kenya)
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Big Fat Wish – Christopher Franciosca (USA)
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Surveillance – Sabina Ramet (USA/Norway)
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A Lesson in A Flat – Mike Power (USA)
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Clowns of the Crown – Chiemezem Everest Udochukwu (Nigeria)
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Two Women – Meri Holl (USA)
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My French Tutor and the Dragon Under My Bed – Lucas Huang (USA/Taiwan)
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Untitled Saint - Wei Cheng (China)
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Bella Napoli – Steve Gold (USA)
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Yesterday By the Beatles – Sean Sullivan (USA)
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Breaking the Wall – Dan Borengasser (USA)
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Body Count – Ifedolapo Olaniyi (Nigeria)
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Y? – Frank E. Robinson (USA)
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The Worst Table – Karen Poulsen (USA)
Also in no particular order, the Honourable Mentions are:
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Curs’d Be Macbeth – Donna Latham (USA)
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We Don’t Say Bleh Bleh Bleh – Evan Edwards (USA)
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No Country For Young People – Phil Ibsen (Kenya)
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The Nazarene, The Jew and the Jihadist – John Ladd (USA)
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Eden Revisited – Christopher P. Minichono (USA)
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Weekend Warrior – Lisa Emily Patterson (Denmark)
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After the Funeral – Martin Heavisides (USA)
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Ojukwu – Stephen Adinyoi (Nigeria)
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A Harvest Truth – Richard Lyons Conlon (USA)
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Beneath the Garment – Jeff Iwu (Nigeria)
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Cutting Season – Elizabeth Hess (USA/Canada)
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Much Fuss About Everything – Kithusi Mulonzya (Kenya)
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Solid 8 – Jeffrey Gold (USA)
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Call & Response – Marcus Scott (USA)
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A Loaf of Bread – Erick Kitheka (Kenya)
The 2025 prize accepted scripts for ten-to-fifteen-minute stage plays and aims to spotlight both the playwrights and the craft of playwriting. With no theme provided, the submitted works covered a wide range of topics, including family drama, economic hardship, gender identity, espionage, war, love, romance, slavery, vampires, religion, pop culture, and nationalism. War was an especially common topic with several stories using Israel/Palestine, Ukraine,Nazi Germany, and Biafra as backdrops.
The playwrights sent in unpublished scripts from the USA, Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Denmark, Canada, Iran, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Ghana, Zambia, Norway, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Uganda, Cameroon, China, and New Zealand. The United States of America had the highest number of entries and dominates the longlist. ‘American writers didn’t come to play,’ says Chief Judge Alexander Nderitu. ‘The trail blazed by such playwrights as Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and Ntozake Shange continues to shine, like Broadway itself.’ He has also lauded the overall quality of the submissions:
‘They (the playwrights) took everything into consideration: characterization, language, stage use, set pieces, dialogue…everything. In just ten to fifteen minutes. Talk of capturing lightning in a bottle! The names in the honours lists also displayed good use of Chekhov’s Gun: no superfluous props, unnecessary scenes, or waste lines. As expected, some entries were instantly disqualified for falling out of the stated guidelines, like being too long or including author identifiers, but they were mercifully few. This particular contest also attracted a lot of interest from academia and from older generations. The eldest contestant was ninety-sevenyears old while the youngest was nineteen.’
The shortlist will be released in April 2026 and the final winner will be unveiled in May, at The Asian Literary Festival in Nairobi, Kenya.