Sanya takes centre stage at LABAF review after prize win

By Doris Obinna

Nigeria-born novelist and cultural storyteller, Oyin Olugbile, has won the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature for her novel Sanya, earning the prestigious US$100,000 award. The winner was announced on October 10, 2025, marking yet another milestone for the prize sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG).

At the book review, which took centre stage over the weekend at the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF), the novel was praised for its bold reimagining of Yoruba mythology and its feminist framing.

The event, held under the sub-theme “Securing Memory, Effecting Change,” spotlighted both Olugbile’s achievement and NLNG’s continued contribution to Nigeria’s literary landscape.

Reviewer, actor and literary activist Nathaniel Olawoyin, highlighted how Sanya demonstrated literature’s power to shape national discourse, preserve cultural identity and inspire future generations. He noted the book’s rich engagement with myth, memory and gender, particularly its interrogation of patriarchy through a heroine who must disguise herself as a man to fulfill her destiny.

Joining virtually, Olugbile explained that Sanya draws deeply from Yoruba cosmology. The title, she said, means “to recompense” or “to redeem suffering,” a reference to the protagonist’s birth following her mother’s multiple stillbirths and a prophecy of a warrior child. Some readers, she added, have detected the deliberate fusion of the deities Sango and Oya in the name, pointing to the novel’s themes of duality, lineage and destiny.

In her remarks, NLNG’s Manager for Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku, echoed the praise from the advisory board, describing Sanya as “very daring.”