Meet The Judges
Meet The Judges
Mr. Tade Ipadeola is the Chair of the panel of three judges. He is a multiple award-winning author in prose and poetry who writes in Yoruba and English. He has published three major volumes of poetry – A Time of Signs (2000), The Rain Fardel (2005), and The Sahara Testaments (2013). The Sahara Testaments won the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2013.
His poem Odidere (‘Songbird’) won the Delphic Laurel in poetry at the Delphic Games held in Jeju, South Korea, in 2009. He has translated an important Yoruba novelist, Daniel Fagunwa, from his native Yoruba into English. He has also translated poems by W.H Auden, Tomas Transtromer, and Lu Xun into Yoruba.
He was a distinguished writer at the prestigious Bellagio Residency managed by the Rockefeller Foundation in Italy (2015). He has been visiting Fellow and has taught writing at the International Writing Program, University of Iowa (2019). Mr. Ipadeola served as a judge in our inaugural poetry contest in 2023.
Ms. Aduke Gomez is a poet and author of children’s stories. Her published collection of poems was featured as a festival book for both the LABAF (2017) and the Ake Festival (2017). Her children's book Lost and Found in Lagos - a collaboration with Biola Alabi Media was selected as one of Channels TV Book Club Top Twenty Books for 2019. Her recent poetry collection Attending My Own Wake & Other Episodes was featured at the 2021 Goethe Institute Nigeria Digital Conference on Mental Health and Art Therapy. Her newest children's picture book, The Silver Magic Cooking Pot, was featured at the 2022 edition of LABAF and is also a ZODML 2023 Book Talk selection. Ms. Gomez served as a judge in our inaugural poetry contest
Ms. Achalugo Chioma Ilozumba is an award-winning playwright. Her play Daughters of the East made her the first female winner of the Beeta Prize for Playwriting in 2020. Her other play is The Women in the Mirror, which was a ZODML Book Talk selection. Her debut novel, Mmirinzo, the ones who are rain, was the first runner-up for the 2021 Spring Prize for Women Authors. She has also won the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Prize for drama, and the Quramo Prize for fiction. She was one of the six playwrights chosen to participate in the 2021 Playwrights Lab organized by the National Theatre of Wales, in conjunction with the Lagos Theatre Festival and the British Council. She is also the auhor of a children’s book titled The Penguin Club. Ms. Ilozumba served as a judge in our inaugural poetry contest in 2023.