francesca ekwuyasi
francesca ekwuyasi is a storyteller and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. She won the 2022 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers for her debut novel Butter Honey Pig Bread. The book was also selected for CBC’s Canada Reads, longlisted for the Giller Prize, and shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and a Governor General’s Literary Award. ekwuyasi’s short fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, and Transition Magazine. ekwuyasi divides her time between Halifax and Montreal.
Writers & Books
Award History
Jury Citation
“It is clear from the very first sentences that francesca ekwuyasi’s Butter Honey Pig Bread is an ambitious and assured debut. What is extraordinary, though, is that from those first sentences the novel keeps expanding in both breadth and depth like a slowly unfurling universe. ekwuyasi gives us not one protagonist but three, each their own galaxy of complexity. This work is filled with many pleasures, by turns sensuous and sensual, magical and mystical, but also deadly serious in its exploration of harm and reconciliation. A profound work of love, Butter Honey Pig Bread reminds us that the best novels can hold what cannot be contained.” — 2022 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Jury (Billy-Ray Belcourt, Samra Habib, and Zoey Leigh Peterson)Program History
Works Recognized by WT