Samuel Kolawole

Samuel Kọ´láwọlé 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 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the International Book Awards,and was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize. 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 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.