Samuel Kọláwọlé

Writer

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His critically acclaimed debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, received the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the 2024 International Book Awards, and was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize.

Other honors for his work include 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 is a member of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program faculty