Kenyan Author Wins International Literary Award

NAIROBI, Kenya - Jan. 4, 2024 - PRLog -- Author Alexander Nderitu is the sole African on last year's Sahitto International Awards of Literature list of winners. The annual literary awards are organized by Tareq Samin; a writer, social entrepreneur and human rights activist from Bangladesh. The team of international judges took into consideration Nderitu's body of work, and in particular the short story collection, Disco Matanga (2022). The 2023 winners are:

'Grand Jury Award' Category:

• Agron Shele (Albania/Belgium)
• Vesna Mundishevska-Veljanovska (North Macedonia)

'Excellence in Literature' Category:

• Shurouk Hammoud (Syria/Sweden)
• Mariela Cordero (Venezuela)
• Daniela Andonovoska (North Macedonia)
• Ali Al Hasmi (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

'Jury Award' Category:

• Alexander Nderitu (Kenya)
• Rania Angelakoudi (Sweden)
• Fernando Carbrera (Dominican Republic)
• Surya Keerthy (India)
• Sushant Thapa (Nepal)
• Taghrid Bou Merhi (Lebanon)
• Yang Jijun (China)
• Anna Maria Dall'Olio (Italy)
• Armenuhi Sisyan (Armenia)

'Special Jury Recolonization Award'

• Anna Yovka (Ukraine)
• Liang Ling (China)
• Pedro Licona (Colombia)

Alexander Nderitu is a poet, novelist, playwright, and critic. In 2017, Business Daily newspaper named him one of Kenya's 'Top 40 Under 40 Men'. His previous accolades include a Share Africa Climate Fiction Award and IHRAF Africa Playwriting Competition prize. In 2023, he was shortlisted for the E. E. Sule/SEVHAGE Books Award for African Criticism (https://sevhage.wordpress.com/2023/12/20/sevhagecriticism...) and co-won the SEVHAGE-Agema Founders' Prize for Criticism.