The Hope Prize is an annual award presented by Ubwali Literary Magazine. It recognizes Zambian writers of prose, essays and poetry featured in the magazine.

One winner will receive an honorarium of $500 and will be featured in the fall issue of Shenandoah. One runner-up will receive a six-month virtual mentorship from a writer in their genre. Another runner-up will have the opportunity to attend a class offered by Caine Prize–winning writer Makena Onjerika. The winner will be announced in June.

As part of the Ubwali Hope Prize Interview Series, we sit with each of the six shortlisted writers. They talk about their journey, the work that earned them a spot on the list, and the process behind their craft.

In this conversation, we speak with Mwanabibi Sikamo, a Zambian storyteller and award-winning filmmaker. Her fiction and essays play with form and function, drawing on years as an immigrant, natural hair advocate, television host/producer, and feminist social commentator. Published by The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Kalahari Review, Shenandoah, Fiyah Literary Magazine, Iskanchi and others, in 2023, she was a finalist for the Sevhage Literary Prize for Creative Non-Fiction. In 2013 she co-founded ZedHair, Zambia’s first and biggest natural hair blog, a cultural movement to educate, empower and provide indigenous African hair products. 

Mwanabibi Sikamo was shortlisted for her essay, Conditioned Roots.

 

Hello Mwanabibi, Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize.  Could you briefly introduce yourself and share how your journey as a writer began? Was there a particular moment or experience that nudged you towards storytelling?

Thank you!

I call myself a Zambian storyteller because I need a broad term to describe all the various things I do. I’m a filmmaker, working behind the scenes in TV and film production. I’m an essayist and short story writer. I write children’s stories and run school clubs. 

I’ve always been fascinated by stories and the process of creating them. I love words. As a child, I wrote Enid Blyton-style stories. I remember sitting on a reed mat under the big leafy tree in our backyard, scribbling stories on stapled together sheets of blank paper. I began writing for public consumption in the early 2010s when I started a personal blog called Uprooting the Pumpkin. 

 

My natural hair journey began the day my mother cut off the relaxed parts of my hair and then left me to figure it all out on my own. To this day, I’m still learning how to make it work. Reading Conditioned Roots felt incredibly inspiring— honestly, I felt so seen. I know you write about natural hair often, but what was it like penning this particular essay? Did anything about the process surprise you?

I’m so glad this essay resonated. Learning about our hair can be like wading through sludge – you feel you should know about it because it’s your hair but you also have this niggling feeling that your hair is inherently different from that other person with the “good hair”. 

Often, when I write about hair I’m writing for instruction, which is why the form of a recipe came so naturally to me, but I didn’t want this essay to be about telling people how to take care of their hair. I wanted to show my journey, to immerse the reader in my experience and then I wanted to celebrate our indigenous knowledge, the oils, butter, leaves and powders that our ancestors used long before we were told our hair was difficult. It was so liberating to write from a more detached point of view, to see myself as a character.

 

What does being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize mean to you personally and as a writer? 

I’m one of those tentative writers. I’ve been doing this a long time on various blogs, in magazines, even a couple of newspapers, but I’m never not nervous about sharing my work, biting my nails as soon as it’s out in the world. This was amplified when I began writing fiction 2 years ago. And when I got into creative nonfiction? I submit all of my essays with bated breath because there is no journalistic language to shield me.  

Being shortlisted for the prize is such a validation. A validation of my instinct to play with unusual forms of writing. Proof that my stories are worth telling.

It’s so gratifying that this prize is given by a Zambian magazine.

Two years in fiction, wow. How has the journey in the world of fiction been for you so far? And do you find yourself blending your experience with nonfiction writing into any of your fiction work? 

I’ve published six short stories in a number of literary magazines, one of which was on Afrocritick’s list of 33 Remarkable African Short Stories of 2023 and another has been translated into Portuguese, so I’d say my foray into fiction is going quite well. 

I never thought I would ever write fiction. I was always so in awe of all the authors I read and couldn’t figure out how they did it. Then a friend who is homeschooling her kids asked me to help her come up with stories rooted in local folklore, tradition and history. That was my first attempt at a book – an epic children’s adventure. That book didn’t quite work but it did spawn short stories for both adults and children. Maybe it’s because of how this all began, but all of my writing is symbiotic; whether it’s personal essays, social commentary, or fiction, I’m always exploring the African condition and excavating the past with a particular interest in our spirituality. 

 

The dialogues in Conditioned Roots were mainly not written in English, and there were few translations—something I found really bold and refreshing. Is this a style you often lean into? And how easy or challenging has it been combining local dialects with narrative flow in your work?

I love writing in our local languages and sprinkling them through my work, not so much as a gimmick but because it’s real. This is how everyday interactions occur in our world and writing it any other way would be a lie. Fun fact – I actually use two different languages in this essay, the hairdresser speaks Nyanja and the narrator responds in Bemba because this is how I navigate the world living in a city where many of the locals speak a different language from mine. 

The challenge is in making the work accessible. When I first started writing this way, I received important feedback about how it could become annoying to someone who didn’t speak the language. I try to contextualize the words; sometimes I have to be more forthright about translation, and always I have to ensure the integrity of the story is intact, whether you know the precise meanings or not. 

Our languages often lose much of their poeticism in translation. 

 

Writers often begin as readers, and reading continues to shape their voice. Which books or authors have left a lasting impact on you, and are there any you return to often?

So many books but I’ll focus on some that impacted this essay.

In terms of the style of ‘Conditioned Roots’, I have to say I was enamored by Junot Diaz’s ‘The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’. I enjoyed his use of footnotes, which created the effect of a story within a story, allowing him to alternate voices and establish an even closer first-person narrative. I wanted to mimic that effect here. 

Namwali Serpell’s short story ‘Account’ written in the form of a bank statement really expanded my idea of the form a story or essay can take. 

Noo Saro-Wiwa’s ‘Looking for Transwornderland’ was a revelation to me. As a staunch reader of fiction, I was pleasantly surprised at how immersive narrative nonfiction can be.

 

I can definitely see how these books impacted Conditioned Roots. How long did it take you to write the essay, and what was the process like from first draft to final piece?

To find the answer to this, I had to rummage through my files. I like to keep iterations of my work so that I can track their evolution and I had a number of versions of this essay. I first saved the essay in November of 2023 and it was published in Ubwali just over a year later. 

That first document was a recipe with very little direct interaction between the narrator and the reader. Soon after, I included footnotes. At this point, I thought it was done and even put it forward for an award. That meant I stopped working on it for a few months while the judging process happened. It wasn’t done, and a year later, I worked with Ubwali to refine it. This is where the contextual elements came in and the piece evolved from just a recipe with footnotes into a story. 

I really enjoy tweaking my work once it’s “complete”. I find the blank page daunting, but give me words that need a shape any day. Like everyone else, I tend to initially resist feedback.  Once I’ve let it percolate, editing with external insight is one of my favourite aspects of the writing process. 

 

Read: How to Get Critiques on Your Work

 

Are there any projects you’re currently working on—writing or otherwise—that you’re excited about?

I’m always starting new projects. Aren’t all writers? 

I’m excited about a lot of the creative nonfiction I’ve been writing and I’m working on putting them into collections. I have created some children’s story/activity books that are in need of a publishing home. And I’m still working on that first novel. 

 

What advice would you give emerging writers navigating the evolving landscape of African literature today, especially those who may feel unseen or uncertain?

I’d say keep writing and start sharing. Lean into the literary community for inspiration and feedback. Then just put yourself out there and be open to opportunities for growth. 

 

Congratulations once again on the shortlist, and thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. We look forward to the projects you will share in the near and distant future.