Cassava Republic to launch inaugural Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize

Cassava Republic is set to launch the inaugural $30,000 (£24,374) Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize.

According to a report on the The Bookseller the launch will be on the 26 October 2023.

The report further said the awards will be open to emerging and established cis, trans and genderqueer Black women writers globally, seeking “the best in unpublished non-fiction manuscripts”.

The prize’s mission according to The Bookseller is to reward and publish Black women from across Africa and the Afro-diaspora, with a focus on “critical ideas across time and space”. The panel of judges will include Black women writers and scholars from across Africa and its diasporas and will be announced soon.

The winner of the prize, which is funded by private equity fund manager Alitheia Capital and Open Society Foundation Africa, will secure a publishing contract with Cassava Republic Press and receive a $20,000 (£16,246) advance. To acknowledge the strengths of the shortlisted writers, two runners-up will also each receive a $5,000 (£4,061) advance and a publishing deal.

Publishing director Bibi Bakare-Yusuf said: “We take immense pride in launching the Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize as we take steps to addressing a long-overlooked gap in the literary world. The prize builds on the long tradition of Black women writers as theorists and intellectuals, and provide a platform for a range of writers from Africa and the Afro-diaspora to follow in the footsteps of luminaries such as Anna Julia Cooper, Amy Jacques Garvey, Claudia Jones, Noni Jabavu, Audre Lorde, May Ayim, Ellen Khuzwayos, bell hooks and Toni Morrison who have come before.

“This prize is part of Cassava Republic’s vision becoming a global Black publishing house, publishing books by Afro-descendant writers from across the world.”