Fiston Mwanza Mujila has emerged Africa’s leading hero of literature after scooping the highly anticipated Grande finale of the Etisalat Prize for Literature 2015 held last weekend at Intercontinental Lagos Hotel. He was awarded winner for his debut fiction novel, Tram 83, and he walked away with a £15,000 cheque and an engraved Montblanc Meisterstück. He will also attend the Etisalat Fellowship at the prestigious University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, under the mentorship of Professor Giles Foden, the author of The Last King of Scotland.
Mujila is the third winner of the Pan-African literary prize for first time published authors in the fiction category instituted by Etisalat Nigeria since 2013.
35 year old Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, where studied Literature and Human Sciences at Lubumbashi University. He now lives in Graz, Austria and is pursuing a PhD in Romance Languages. He has since amassed great accolades for his literary work including being the recipient of the gold medal for literature at the 2009 Francophone Games in Lebanon for his text “The Night”. In 2014, Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s debut novel, Tram 83, was published by Éditions Métailié to considerable acclaim. In autumn 2015, an English translation (by Roland Glasser) ofTram 83 was published by Deep Vellum Publishing in Dallas, Texas, and received widespread praise. His poems, prose works, and plays are reactions to the political turbulence that has come in the wake of the independence of the Congo and its effect on day-to-day life.