About

  Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.

Other honors for his work include being a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and the UK's The First Novel Prize.

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 a 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 teaches fiction writing full-time as an assistant professor of English and African studies at Pennsylvania State University. He recently joined the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers as a faculty member.

press kit

FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES AND SCHOLARSHIP/AWARDS

  • The Whiting Award, 2025

  • PEN/Hemingway Award for debut novel, Finalist, 2025

  • Aspen Words Literary Prize, Longlist, 2025

  • International Book Awards, Finalist, 2024

  • Caine Prize for African Writing, Finalist, London, United Kingdom

  • Toyin Fálọlá Prize, Shortlist, 2020

  • The Paul Bowles Graduate Student Fellowship in Fiction Writing, 2020

  • Finalist, Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship in Writing & Publishing, 2020

  • Shortlist, The First Novel Prize, United Kingdom, 2019

  • Carson McCullers Center’s Marguerite and Lamar Smith Writing Fellowship, Columbus State University, Georgia, 2019.

  • Editor-Writer Mentorship Program for Diverse Writers, Denver, Colorado 2019

  • Finalist, Graywolf Press Africa Prize, Graywolf Press, April 2018

  • Emerging Writers Scholarship, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont 2017

  • International Writing Program Fellowship, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 2015

  • Michael Alexander Scholarship, Clarion West Writers Workshop, Seattle, Washington, 2015

  • Wellstone Centre in the Redwoods Fellowship, Santa Cruz, California, 2015

  • Island Institute, Sitka, Alaska, 2015: Writer in residence

  • Prince Claus fund for Culture and Development, Netherlands 2014

  • Norman Mailer Center Fiction Fellowship, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2014

  • Ebedi International Writers Residency, Oyo State, Nigeria, 2012: Writer in residency