From CANEX to Quramo Festival Of Words 2025: Why ‘A Brave New World’ matters

By Gbemi Shasore

RETURNING from Algiers — where Dear Zimi, our 2023 Quramo Writers’ Prize winner, was shortlisted for the CANEX Book Factory Prize for Publishing in Africa — I came home with a renewed sense of responsibility. That trip felt like a quiet nudge: the small labours of a modest publisher in Lagos can reach beyond our borders. It reminded me that when we nurture writers at home, their stories travel farther than we imagine.

That sense of possibility sits at the heart of this year’s theme ‘A Brave New World.’ Change is not an abstraction for me — it is visible in the streets, on our screens, in who reads and in how we read. It demands courage from storytellers, publishers and audiences alike. QFest 2025 was designed as a festival that meets this moment: a space where difficult histories can be held, new technologies interrogated, bold futures imagined and new writers and stories discovered through the Quramo Writers Prize. The festival opens on Thursday, October 2 and runs till Sunday, October 5, 2025.

One guest I am especially proud to welcome is Prof. Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ. A writer, poet and scholar, Prof. Mũkoma teaches at Cornell University, New York, US, and has produced fiction and criticism that question memory, language and identity across Africa and its diaspora. He will lead an intimate ‘Up Close & Personal’ conversation on Saturday, October 4 (11:50AM–12:40 PM) — a rare chance for festival audiences to hear directly about the ideas and the craft behind his novels and poetry. I am also looking forward to having the award wining Irish poet, Stephen James Smith as well s the Kenyan writer and literature blogger, James Murua, at the festival. For me, their presence is more than star power; it’s a reminder of the intergenerational, pan-African and intercontinental conversations we’re trying to sustain at Quramo — between those who inherit our literary traditions and those who reinvent them.

Representative of Masobe Books, Mrs. Theresa Ominiabohs (left); President, Nigerian Publishers Association, Alhaji Lukman Dauda and Publisher, Quramo Publishing, Mrs. Gbemi Shasore at CANEX Publishing Prize for Africa 2025… in Algiers, Algeria

Across the programme you will see that thread. We open with masterclasses on Thursday, October 2 with masters of their craft like Dele Sikuade, BB Sasore, Prof. Mũkoma and the Ghanaian storyteller, Prof. Sarah Dorgbadzi, at the Quramo Hub in Victoria Island, Lagos. The following day, Friday, October 3, there will be a conversation with the Quramo Writers’ Prize Top Five, culminating in the evening unveiling of the 2025 winner — moments that celebrate new voices and our ongoing commitment to publish and platform them. Saturday, October 4 includes conversations that move from the intimate — a ‘Writers Exchange’ between poets Tade Ipadeola and Smith — and to the public the more urgent session: a carefully framed conversation on the Nigerian Civil War, 961 Days: Brothers at War. Never Again – which aims for reflection and healing rather than recrimination with voices like Major General Akintunde Akinkunmi (rtd) and Ed Keazor amongst other great discussants. That afternoon, we honour film storytelling with the exclusive screening of Thicker Than Water from Nemsia Studios and, on Sunday, a moving documentary by Remi Vaughan-Richards, Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You Home.

We have sought balance: workshops and masterclasses to sharpen craft; panels on AI, migration, climate and film distribution to test new ideas; cultural exchanges like Siamsa to remind us how stories sit inside ritual and song, and spoken word nights that let younger voices speak directly. These sessions are not separate acts — they are parts of one conversation about who we are, what we owe each other, and how storytelling can help us imagine safer, fairer futures.

CANEX showed me that the work of small presses matters on a continental stage. QFest is where we widen that circle — where ideas that begin in small rooms can join larger debates. We invite everyone — readers, writers, filmmakers, students, and curious passersby — to join us in Lagos this October as we test, celebrate and reimagine what it means to be brave in a changing world.

Quramo Festival of Words (QFest) 2025 takes place this week from Thurday, October 2 — 5, 2025 at Eko Hotels & Suites, Lagos.

More: https://www.quramo.com/festival | Instagram: @quramoofficial