The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a Nigerian creative writer and journalist. His debut short-story collection The Whispering Trees was longlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014, with the title story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

Ibrahim has won the BBC African Performance Prize and the ANA Plateau/Amatu Braide Prize for Prose and in 2014, he was selected for the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature.

His first novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, won the Nigerian Prize for Literature, Africa’s largest literary prize in 2016.

He is the Features Editor at the Daily Trust newspaper. Ibrahim’s reporting from North-East Nigeria has won particular critical acclaim. In May 2018 he was announced as the winner of the Michael Elliot Award for Excellence in African Storytelling, awarded by the International Center for Journalists, for his report “All That Was Familiar”, published in Granta magazine.

Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist and writer, and one of Nigeria’s most well-known satirists. He has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing (2013 & 2015).

His writing has been published in Per Contra, Evergreen Review and Chimurenga’s The Chronic. He is a 2015 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and lives in Abuja, Nigeria.

Martin Egblewogbe was born in Ghana in 1975. He has a Ph.D in Physics and works at the University of Ghana, Legon where he is a lecturer in the Department of Physics. He enjoys writing short stories and poetry in his spare time and has contributed to several anthologies.

He also currently hosts the radio show “Writers Project” on CitiFM in Accra, Ghana.

Martin currently lives with his wife and two children in Accra. Martin Egblewogbe’s stories and poetry have appeared in newspapers, anthologies, and several works of his are available online. A number of his stories have won awards and commendations.

Originally self-published as 'Mr Happy and the Hammer of God', Martin’s collection of short stories was re-issued by Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd. in 2012 as “Mr Happy and the Hammer of God and Other Stories”. In 2010, Martin Egblewogbe and Laban Carrick Hill co-edited the anthology of poetry, “Look Where You Have Gone To Sit” (Woeli, 2010). His second collection of short stories, 'The Waiting' was released in 2020.

Tendai Huchu’s work has been translated into German, French, Spanish, and Italian. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Interzone, Wasafiri, and elsewhere. He was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize.