Samuel Kọ́láwọlé

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. He is the author of a new, critically acclaimed novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, a finalist for the International Book awards, and currently longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize. His work has appeared in AGNI, New England Review, Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Harvard Review, Image Journal, and other literary publications. He has received numerous residencies and fellowships and has been a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and UK’s The First Novel Prize. He won an Editor-Writer Mentorship Program Award for Diverse Writers. He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University. He has taught creative writing in Africa, Sweden, and the United States and was visiting faculty at Vermont College of Fine Art’s MFA in Creative Writing. He currently teaches fiction writing as an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University and as Fiction Faculty in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.