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| Alexander Nderitu during a studio interview |
Author Alexander Nderitu was the only African writer 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 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, who lost his mother to cancer in October 2023, is a poet, novelist, playwright, and critic. His first book, When the Whirlwind Passes, was Africa’s pioneering digital novel. In 2017, Business Daily newspaper named him one of Kenya’s ‘Top 40 Under 40 Men’. In 2022, he took third place in the Share Africa Climate Fiction Awards. In 2023, he was shortlisted for an E. E. Sule/SEVHAGE Books African Criticism Award.
