Ooreoluwa Agbede has won the 2026 Quramo Writers Prize (QWP) with his manuscript, Four Months, announced at the Quramo Festival of Words (QFest), held from 1 to 3 October.
The win comes in a milestone anniversary year for the Quramo Writers Prize, with the prize purse increased to a ₦2 million cash prize, alongside dedicated second- and third-place prizes.
Nduka-Nwosu, judging for the first time, thanked festival convener Gbemi Shasore and described the platform as vital at a time when digital distractions often rival reading.
Ooreoluwa Agbede, who was previously longlisted in 2022 for a different work, expressed gratitude to Quramo Publishing. He revealed that the protagonist of Four Months draws on his own life and the realities of navigating the struggles of regular 9-to-5 jobs.
Thanking the judges and his fellow nominees, Ooreoluwa Agbede said:
“There are times I go to bed at 2 or 3 pm.
To my fellow shortlistees, I want to see everybody at the top.”
1st Place (Winner): Four Months by Ooreoluwa O. Agbede
Structured in five movements, the novel tracks the main character’s passage through grief as his life begins to fracture across Lagos, Abeokuta, and the intimate spaces of family, memory, and work after he is diagnosed with brain cancer, with only four months left to live.
2nd Place: The Glass Between Us by Jenny Kingsley Emem (represented by Obasi Rita Somtochukwu)
A novel examining the literal pane between a child in a car and a child on the road, exploring structures of distance between international conference rooms and junctions in Akwa Ibom, and between legal solutions in Geneva and problems in Kano.
3rd Place: Kuroya by John Tantswanashe Banda (Zimbabwe)
Blending campus life and the occult, sharp-tongued Nyasha navigates university pressures, a suffocating guardian, and a murderous uncle as she fights to survive long enough to claim revenge on her own terms.
4th Place: Traces of a Dream by Harilu Ali Musa
A story about inheritance, guilt, silence, and money made in the dark and donated toward the light, following three women who believed their lives were their own when the past arrives to collect.
5th Place: Tribe and Prejudice by Chigozie Laurel Amarango
The story of a young woman trapped between her own ambitions and the suffocating weight of family expectation, community tradition, and a culture that has already defined a woman’s life.
