Honouring African Intellectual Excellence: ASAA Calls For 2027 Pius Adesanmi Award Nominations
A Prize Built From an Intellectual Legacy
THE African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) has opened nominations for the 2027 Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing, renewing a biennial search for outstanding scholarship on Africa and the global African experience.
Established in 2019 following the death of Nigerian-born, Canada-based scholar Professor Pius Adesanmi, the award has become part of ASAA’s effort to recognise influential academic writing within the broad field of African Studies. The association described Adesanmi’s death as a monumental loss to the global African Studies community.
More importantly, however, the prize seeks to preserve an aspect of his intellectual legacy by placing serious African scholarship and writing at the centre of recognition.
ASAA says the award is presented every two years to an outstanding single-authored academic book focused on Africa and/or the global African world. The 2027 call is open to books across academic disciplines within the wider field of African Studies.
Beyond Discipline & Geography
The scope of the award is deliberately broad.
ASAA says eligible books may come from any academic discipline within African Studies and may address Africa or the wider African experience across the diaspora. Entries can be published in English, French, Portuguese or an African language, although works not originally published in English must be translated into English for consideration.
That breadth reflects the complex nature of African Studies itself. Scholarship on the continent increasingly crosses the boundaries between history, politics, literature, sociology, anthropology, economics, cultural studies and other fields.
Consequently, the award does not simply seek books that document African realities. It is particularly interested in scholarship that introduces innovative theoretical, conceptual or methodological approaches while making a clear contribution to the field.
What the Award Committee Will Look For
For the 2027 cycle, eligibility begins with authorship.
The nominated work must be a single-authored academic book written by a person of African descent. It must fall within African Studies and focus on Africa and/or the global African experience.
School guides, textbooks and edited volumes are excluded.
The publication date is equally important. ASAA stipulates that books must have a copyright date no more than four years before the award year. For the 2027 award, only books published between January 2020 and June 2026 qualify.
Yet meeting the basic requirements will not, by itself, determine the outcome.
The selection criteria include contribution to African Studies, representation, quality of writing, creativity, relevance to African and diaspora experiences, thematic cohesion and novelty. The representation criterion also considers dimensions such as region, gender, minority race, disability and religion.
In effect, the committee is looking not only at what a book studies, but also at how convincingly and creatively it expands knowledge about African experiences.
A Call Open to Scholars, Activists & Artists
The nomination process also extends beyond conventional academic networks.
According to ASAA, nominations may be submitted by or on behalf of a scholar, activist and/or artist. Publishers or authors may submit only one book.
Each nomination must include a brief description of the book, its theoretical, conceptual and/or methodological significance, as well as an explanation of why the work represents excellence in African writing.
The submission must also include one electronic copy and six physical copies of the book for review by members of the award committee. ASAA states that the physical copies will not be returned.
December Deadline Sets the Clock
The 2027 nomination window opened on 14 September 2026, and closes on 14 December 2026.
Nominations are to be sent to the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Prize email address [piusadesanmimemorialprize@as-aa.org], while the committee will subsequently provide details for delivery of the physical copies.
The timeline gives publishers, authors and nominators several weeks to identify eligible works, prepare the required documentation and complete the submission process.
Recognition Beyond the Prize Money
The eventual winner will receive more than a financial award.
ASAA says the recipient will receive a cash prize and plaque, as well as lifetime membership of the association. The prize itself is funded by ASAA.
The significance of the award, therefore, extends beyond its material component. Recognition through a specialised African Studies association places the winning book within a wider scholarly conversation about how Africa is researched, interpreted and represented.
That dimension is particularly relevant in a field where questions about who produces knowledge about Africa, whose experiences receive attention and which intellectual frameworks are used to interpret the continent have remained important.
The Adesanmi Legacy Continues
Pius Adesanmi was known as a scholar, writer and public intellectual whose work connected academic inquiry with questions about African identity, literature, culture and the global African experience.
His death in 2019 prompted widespread mourning across the African Studies community. ASAA subsequently established the memorial award in his name.
Seven years later, the award continues to link his memory with the recognition of new scholarship.
Rather than treating African writing merely as a literary category, the prize places academic writing itself within a broader intellectual project. It asks scholars to produce work that is rigorous, creative, clear and capable of adding something meaningful to African Studies.
Winner to Be Announced in 2027
The outcome of the 2027 competition will be announced during a special ceremony at the closing banquet of ASAA’s 7th Biennial Conference in October 2027.
The result will subsequently be published on the association’s website.
For authors and publishers working across African Studies, the call therefore represents both a deadline and an opportunity: to place significant scholarship before an international African Studies community and to contribute to an ongoing conversation about the production, representation and future of African knowledge.
