Samuel Kọ́láwọlé

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His 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 was long-listed for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize. He studied at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University in South Africa. He is also a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University.

He teaches fiction full-time as an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. His novel Blackland is scheduled to be published by Amistad/Harper Collins in 2027, followed by his story collection The Hyena Boys.