Samuel Kọ́láwọlé

Professional Bio

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His work has appeared in AGNI, New England Review, Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Harvard Review, Image Journal, and elsewhere.

His fiction has been supported with fellowships, residencies, and scholarships from the Norman Mailer Center, International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Columbus State University’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, Clarion West Writers Workshop, Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, California, and Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. He was a finalist for the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, shortlisted for UK’s The First Novel Prize in 2019, and won a 2019 Editor-Writer Mentorship Program for Diverse Writers. Samuel has taught creative writing in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States.

Kọ́láwọlé studied at the University of Ibadan and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa. A graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, he returned to VCFA to join the faculty of the low-residency MFA program. He earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University.

Kọ́láwọlé teaches fiction writing full-time at Pennsylvania State University, where he is an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies. His novel The Road to the Salt Sea will be published by Amistad/HarperCollins in July 2024.