Chinonso Nzeh Wins the 2023 Isele Nonfiction Prize Winner for “The Slipping Away”
With “The Slipping Away”, Chinonso Nzeh has drawn a family portrait in which a son pre-mourns the potential passing of his much older parents. This story is tender and urgent and contemplative, and one of the most wrenching frames depicts our narrator observing his parents—their love for each other, their love for their children, their conversations about dying. Nzeh also zooms in on the self, questioning his own journey, who he is outside of this tight-knit family, and the most shattering of all questions: how to survive the ultimate passing of his parents. Strictly speaking, Nzeh’s essay is a daunting question on pre-grieving. Here’s a son so devoted to the parents that he is already asking hard questions, interrogating his own inadequacies, his fears, all the while preparing himself for the inevitable.
This memoir is about being parented and loved and sheltered. It is also about wading through life without one’s anchors. Nzeh highlights deeply vulnerable scenes, puts these moments under scrutiny, and reflects on them, ultimately creating a powerful tapestry that offers readers a new way of writing parent-child relationships.
Announcing the Shortlist
“The Slipping Away” by Chinonso Nzeh
Chinonso Nzeh is first Igbo. His works have been published in Evergreen Review, Agbowó, The Shallow Tales, Isele Magazine, Black Boy Review, Ibadan Arts, and elsewhere. His writing explores grief, gender, sexuality, queerness, familial relationships, class, politics, and Igbo ontology, amongst other things. He thinks of storytelling as a way to comprehend the world’s wonder.
Asides from writing, he’s a law student at the university of Lagos who is interested in researching and writing legal theories on gender and hopes that he can make an impact in dismantling the systemic homophobic and patriarchal laws that underpin the Nigerian legal system.
“My Street Food Lady” by Zary Fekete
Zary Fekete…
…has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia.
…lives and works as a writer in Minnesota.
…has been featured in various publications including Zoetic Press, Intrepidus Ink, and Mangoprism.
…has a debut chapbook of short stories out from Alien Buddha Press and a novelette (In the Beginning) coming out in May from ELJ Publications.
…enjoys books, podcasts, and long, slow films. Twitter: @ZaryFekete
“Fall/Between Words” by Kharys Laue
Kharys Ateh Laue is a writer and editor living in Cape Town. She has written for various literary journals, such as Pleiades, New Contrast, and Brittle Paper. In 2017, her story “Plums” was longlisted for the Short Story Day Africa prize. She is the senior editor at Botsotso and currently studying towards an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Cape Town. Her first book, Sketches, is set for release in April 2023.
“Lagos City Girls Never Pay For Pasta” by Adaorah Oduah
Adaorah Oduah is a culture writer and podcaster based in Lagos Nigeria. She co-hosts a podcast called Uncooked Women that connects West African food to women, history, politics, and pop culture.
“Short Essay on Music” by Adedayo Agarau
Adedayo Agarau is a recipient of the 2023 Wallace Stegner Fellowship and a Cave Canem fellowship. He is the editor-in-chief of Agbowó Magazine. Adedayo Agarau is completing his MFA at the Iowa Writers workshop. His works have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Society of America, World Literature Today and elsewhere.
The Isele Nonfiction Prize 2023: Longlist Announced
We are delighted to announce the longlist for the 2023 edition of The Isele Nonfiction Prize.
The essays we publish at Isele Magazine are brilliant and defiant, and this made narrowing down the longlist quite challenging. Our in-house judges agreed that the essays on this list capture our mission: to provide a platform for works that hold a mirror to our society. These writers continually remind us of the transformative power of stories and the beauty of language. Publishing them was an honor.
On that note, see the longlist in no particular order:
“Fall/Between Words” by Kharys Laue
“The Green Passport” by Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto
“My Street Food Lady” by Zary Fekete
“Lagos City Girls Never Pay For Pasta” by Adaorah Oduah
“Russian Doll” by Mustapha Enesi
“The Slipping Away” by Chinonso Nzeh
“Words: On the Linguistic Indoctrination of a Woman” by Cindy DiTiberio
“Short Essay on Music” by Adedayo Agarau
‘The Wonder of Childhood” by Chimezie Chika
“Young, Bald, and Woman” by Nike Onwu
Nora Nneka Wins the Isele Nonfiction Prize Winner for “Sense of Touch”
Nneka’s deeply moving essay explores the relationship between a daughter and her mother, family trauma, grief, and how these experiences shape a woman’s narrative arc—her relationship with her body, her journey through pregnancy, and the joy that comes with embracing these stories that come together to define who we are and our relationship with our community. Her language is spellbinding.
Read “Sense of Touch.”
Announcing the Shortlist
“Serengeti Saga” by Sylvia K. Ilahuka
Sylvia K. Ilahuka is a Tanzanian writer currently living in Uganda. In addition to Isele Magazine, her work has appeared in Lolwe, Doek!, the Aké Review and other publications. She is also the recipient of an artistic grant from the Goethe-Institut, for which she produced a photographic essay series under the House of African Feminisms project. Mother to a toddler, Sylvia holds a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.
“Sense of Touch” by Nora Nneka
Dr. Nora Ekeanya (Nora Nneka) is a psychiatrist and writer. Raised by Nigerian immigrant parents, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in pre-medical biology from the University of Florida and went on to attend the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. It was during her psychiatry residency training at the University of Missouri- Kansas City that Dr. Ekeanya began writing publicly, starting with articles detailing her experiences as a Black physician, and was soon after featured in the popular physician blog, KevinMD. Her essay, “The Sense of Touch”, was included in the live storytelling event, Shelf Life, and was revised for the December 2020 issue of Isele Magazine. Her first visual poem, Identity, won 2nd place at the Queens Underground International Black and Brown Film Festival in 2021. She also completed her first chapbook, Swallowed Words, in 2021 with hopes of being published in 2022.
“Feeling Your Way Home” by Uche Osondu
Uche Osondu is a Nigerian, tragically. He swears by two things: food and anime. He is currently working on writing and living, in equal measures; he chronicles his experiences doing both on his periodic newsletter, a life in letters: alifeinletters.substack.com. He writes from Abuja.
“Adjuncts in the Age of the Coronavirus” by Frances Cannon
Frances Cannon is the Managing Director of Sundog Poetry, as well as a writer, artist, and instructor, currently teaching visual art and English courses at the Vermont Commons School. She has previously taught at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, Champlain College, as well as the University of Iowa. She has an MFA in creative writing from Iowa and a BA in poetry and printmaking from the University of Vermont. Her published books include: Walter Benjamin: Reimagined, MIT Press, The Highs and Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank, Gold Wake Press, Tropicalia, Vagabond Press, Predator/Play, Ethel Press, Uranian Fruit, Honeybee Press, and Bitten by the Lantern Fly, forthcoming with Finishing Line Press. She has worked for The Iowa Review, McSweeney’s quarterly, The Believer, and The Lucky Peach. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Poetry Northwest, The Iowa Review, The Green Mountain Review, Vice, Lithub, The Moscow Times, The Examined Life Journal, Gastronomica, Electric Lit, Edible magazine, Mount Island, Fourth Genre, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
“The Feminine and the Oracular” by Itiola Jones
I.S. Jones is an American / Nigerian poet, essayist, and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. I.S. hosts a month-long, online poetry workshop every April called The Singing Bullet. She is the co-editor of The Young African Poets Anthology: The Fire That Is Dreamed Of (Agbowó, 2020) and served as the inaugural nonfiction guest editor for Lolwe. She is an Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, freelanced for Complex, Revolt TV, NBC News THINK, and elsewhere. Her works have appeared or is forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart, LA Review of Books, The Rumpus, The Offing, Transition, Shade Literary Arts, Blood Orange Review, Honey Literary and elsewhere. Her poem “Vanity” was chosen by Khadijah Queen as a finalist for the 2020 Sublingua Prize for Poetry. She received her MFA in Poetry at UW–Madison where she was the inaugural 2019–2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship and is the 2021-2022 Hoffman Hall Emerging Artist Fellowship recipient. She is the Director of the Watershed Reading Series with Art + Literature Laboratory, a community-driven contemporary arts center in Madison, Wisconsin. Her chapbook Spells of My Name (2021) is out with Newfound.
Announcing the Longlist
We are delighted to announce the longlist for the inaugural edition of The Isele Nonfiction Prize.
Narrowing down the essays was challenging because the works that we publish at Isele Magazine are brilliant, defiant, and poignantly explore themes that challenge conventional expectations. Publishing them was such a joy. These exceptional writers remind us of the transformative power of stories and the beauty of language.
The works that appear in this longlist encapsulate our mission: to provide a platform for writers who hold a mirror to our society.
On that note, see the longlist in no particular order:
The Isele Nonfiction Prize
“Serengeti Saga” by Sylvia K. Ilahuka
“Sense of Touch” by Nora Nneka
“Feeling Your Way Home” by Uche Osondu
“A Personal History of Cantaloupes” by Dot Armstrong
“Women Who Bleed Colors” by Ope Adedeji
“Adjuncts in the Age of the Coronavirus” by Frances Cannon
“The Feminine and the Oracular” by Itiola Jones
“This is Not My Hand on Your Back” by Tyler Orion
“Cracks in Glass Identities” by Seyi Agboola
“An Odd Sort of Thursday” by Ria Dhingra
About the Prize
The prize is for an essay published in Isele Magazine in the past year.
The judges will publish the longlist of ten essays in February, and a shortlist of five essays in March. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony at the end of April.
Updates
We will occasionally update this page with the most recent news about the prize, including the longlist, the shortlist, the winner, the interviews with our writers, and details about the award ceremony.
Isele Magazine 