The Hope Prize is an annual award presented by Ubwali Literary Magazine. It recognizes Zambian writers of prose 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 Suwilanji Namusamba, a Zambian artist, essayist, and fiction writer. Her work has appeared in Minola Review, Feminist Food Journal, and Art Dusseldorf, among others. When she is not reading, writing, or editing, she enjoys spending time outdoors in nature and playing the guitar.

Suwilanji Namusamba was shortlisted for her essay, Thoughtlets on Immersion

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Hello Suwilanji, Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize and congratulations on the release of your essay in the new Ubwali Issue. 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! An introduction is always hard because I’m still navigating figuring out which are the most important parts to state. I’m a writer, poet, shutterbug, foodie, traveller, and a lawyer by profession.  I feel like writing is something that I didn’t exactly venture into but that happened to me. Growing up I would suddenly have these ideas pop into my head and I just had to get them out and on paper otherwise I would feel like I was…overflowing. 

It was always random. A poem here, a story outline there, or just very random ideas that would almost burst out of me. Thoughtlets, if you will.  I always had a notepad that needed filling. It may all have started with being forced to write actual letters home to parents every Sunday in boarding school, and the feeling I would sometimes get, once I knew how to properly write, that there simply wasn’t enough paper to tell my parents about all the adventures I was having.  It may also be why writing non-fiction has always been easier for me than fiction.

Thoughtlets on Immersion was a fascinating read, I felt pulled into the various adventures and moments you explored in the many waters. What was it like writing this essay? And why did this subject feel important to you?

I randomly started writing this essay on a Sunday night at 10:53pm.  The day and time are both significant because it was way past my bedtime, and I had work the next day.  Also, the Lake Bangweulu unicorn floater incident that I speak about in Thoughtlets on Immersion had happened just a week before. I must have been looking at the photos and videos from the trip and I just said to myself, possibly out loud in the silence of my home, “what is it with me and water?”.

Next thing I was typing furiously away on my Notes app trying to analyze it.  I think better when I see thoughts on “paper” so it was more of a moment of letting out the thoughts while they were still fresh, so I could read and consider all this later. I added the experiences that came later, over time, and I guess reading it all together, I came to the conclusion that being curious and afraid of water did not have to be mutually exclusive.

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

Seeing my work published has been just as exhilarating as writing it, so being shortlisted for this amazing opportunity means a great deal to me.  It’s so surreal that I only used to share my writing with my friends and family,  and now I get to see it being published on wider platforms.  So, being shortlisted for this Prize feels like the soft whisper I needed to hear to tell me that sharing my writing means something, and could open doors for me to also learn more about my writing and about myself.

You wear many hats—reader, foodie, traveller, writer, and even lawyer. How do you balance all of these passions? And do they ever intersect in unexpected ways?

It’s interesting how all the different parts of me have actually integrated very well.  Being a lawyer means that I read and write a LOT, and because I enjoy what I do, it makes reading and writing for my own pleasure come a lot easier. Also, being a lawyer has helped to significantly improve how well I express myself and communicate, which helps me in so many areas of my profession and in relationships. 

I love taking photos and I get to do a lot of that when I travel, and the foodie in me has an opportunity to explore culinary delights of the places where I go on adventures.  It’s definitely significant that I feel that my job as a lawyer supports a balanced lifestyle, and I have also learnt to make room for my interests.  I won’t dive into the work-life balance debate because I know now that no one is qualified to give more than just a glimpse of their own mechanisms, and I have learnt that it’s definitely not advice that I believe suits all circumstances.  Even I don’t always find balance, even though I feel like I have laid down my general principles to give me room to enjoy all my passions.

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?

Oh my! This is a tough one. I feel like my early influences that made me want to write came from the books we read in English Literature.  Breaking down the authors’ and poets’ use of language had me hooked. I recently got a copy of Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers and re-reading it took me way back to the days when I first started reading more challenging writing and I would have a dictionary and thesaurus by my side ready to dive into new words. Also, I am quite eclectic with my reading now, and I sort of let my books “come to me”, in whatever shape or form that takes. I think I may just have to share my top 16 reads of 2021-2025 to be fair, in no particular order: 

1. The Girls by Lori Lansens
2. The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
4. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
6. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
7. The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
8. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
9. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
10. Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
11. Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi
12. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
13. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
14. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell 
15. We Were Girls Once by Aiwanose Odafen
16. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

 

Read: 10 African Booksellers You Should Know About

 

I recently finished reading Oprah Winfrey’s What I Know for Sure, and I will definitely come back to that one.  I am currently reading/listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count, and the collection of letters by Gillian Anderson called Want which has been an eye-opening and reflective read.

Even though I would have loved to give a shorter answer,  all these books I have mentioned have evoked significant emotions or impacted me in a peculiar way, so I couldn’t leave any out.  All this and I haven’t even mentioned poetry–a conversation for another time.

 

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

I have a poetry book that has been in edit for way too long. 53 poems, 122 pages and I’m just not entirely sure where to go with it. I had a copy printed so that I could scribble my edits in it, and that helped significantly, but I feel like there’s something that it’s missing that I’m trying to find before I consider what publishing it will look like.  

I wrote a novelette which I have been thinking about turning into a novel, which has a lot of emotion attached for me, because I started writing it during the pandemic, when a lot of my writing had harrowing themes. 

Most significantly I started writing my memoir about 4 years ago.  I was reading Patchwork by Ellen Banda Aaku (add that to list of books/authors that have impacted me) and I read this on the first page under Message from Chinua Achebe:

“The world is just starting to get to know Africa.  The last five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and now the time has come for Africans to tell their own stories.”

I immediately started writing my story, starting with a preamble explaining what happened in my mind in that moment when I started typing furiously away. I’ve called it I’m Telling My Own Story and the idea was that I would finish it by 2026. I’m 34,000 or so words in and my biggest problem is that bubbling brook issue I mentioned earlier. I don’t know what to leave in and what to take out. Really, the exciting part of it is just knowing that I can leave something in the world that gives a different side to “the African story” even if it never reaches print.

 

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

The most significant thing I have come to find: write and keep on writing. 

Write like no-one will ever read it (something I adopted from The Girls by Lori Lansens that I mentioned earlier) or write like you want everyone to read it. If it’s your passion: JUST WRITE.  It can be such a vulnerable thing to do, but I would never have found myself having this discussion here if I didn’t let myself be seen through my words. I still have no idea what my writing journey will look like going forward, but I do know that if there is something significant I want to leave on earth when I’m gone, it’s words on paper that I took the time to share. My greatest hope is that someday, somehow, what I have shared can help someone in some way, bring then cheer and laughter, entertain them, or just make them feel seen.

Congratulations once again on being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. We’re looking forward to all your projects in the near and far future.