Call for Applications: Evaristo Prize for African Poetry

A shortlist of poets will be announced in April, a winner in May. All shortlisted and winning poets agree to allow the APBF website to post their ten submitted poems.

Prize Information

• Annual prize of USD $1,500 will be awarded.

Eligibility Criteria

• The prize is open to African writers. An “African writer” is taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, who is a national or resident of an African country, or whose parents are African.
• The prize is open to African poets who have not yet had a full-length poetry book published at the time of submission. Self-published poetry books, chapbooks, and pamphlets are exempt from this stipulation.
• Only poems written in English can be considered, but they welcome poems in translation for consideration too. In the case that the winning work is translated, a percentage of the prize money would be awarded to the translator.
• No past or present paid employees of the University of Nebraska Press, Akashic Books, or Amalion Press, or current faculty, students, or employees at the University of Nebraska are eligible for the prizes.
• African poets who have published a chapbook in a New-Generation African Poets Chapbooks Box Set series remain eligible for the Evaristo African Poetry Prize if they have not published a full-length book of poems.

Manuscript

• Poems must be the original work of the entrant and be no longer than 40 lines each.
• Poems may have been previously published or won previous awards.
• People who have entered previously for the prize can re-submit but are advised to share new poems.
• While they have no specific formatting rules, they suggest sending your manuscript in Times New Roman or Arial, 12-point font, single-spaced. They also prefer one poem per page, meaning a new poem does not begin on the same page on which another ends. The entire submission must be in black ink, no colors.

For more information, visit APBF.