Kenyan poet and broadcaster Khainga O’Okwemba has been appointed to the three-member jury that will select the winner of the 2026 CANEX Prize for Publishing.
O’Okwemba will serve alongside South African literary scholar Professor Polo Moji on a panel chaired by renowned Nigerian author and academic Professor Aderemi Raji-Oyelade.
The announcement was made by the CANEX Book Factory, a publishing incubator under Afreximbank’s Creative African Nexus Programme, ahead of CANEX WKND 2026. The event will take place from November 5 to 8 in Lagos, Nigeria.
The jury will review eligible submissions and select ten publishers for the longlist, which is expected to be announced in September. Five finalists will then be unveiled in October.
The winning publisher will receive $20,000, while each of the other four finalists will be awarded $2,000. The winner will be announced during an awards ceremony at CANEX WKND in Lagos.
The 2026 competition has also expanded beyond the continent. Previously known as the CANEX Prize for Publishing in Africa, the award is now open to publishers from the African diaspora, including those operating in Caribbean Community member states.
Professor Raji-Oyelade said the prize provides an important platform for recognising publishers who bring African books and ideas to readers while strengthening literary cultures.
“It is an honour to chair this distinguished jury and to experience the breadth and quality of publishing from Africa and its diaspora,” he said.
“The CANEX Prize offers an important opportunity to recognise the work publishers do in bringing books and ideas to readers and strengthening our literary cultures.”
O’Okwemba is a Kenyan poet, essayist and travel writer. He produces and presents The Books Café on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and serves as a sub-editor of The Mast, a KBC publication.
Professor Raji-Oyelade teaches English and Africana Studies at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He is an award-winning poet and scholar who has previously served as Secretary of the PEN Nigeria Centre and President of the Association of Nigerian Authors.
Professor Moji is an associate professor at the University of Cape Town. Her book, Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives, won the 2024 African Literature Association First Book Award.
Through the expanded prize, CANEX seeks to recognise publishers contributing to the circulation of African and diaspora stories while strengthening the continent’s publishing industry.
