This year, six awards are up for grabs, each recognizing excellence in different literary genres. The prizes and their respective cash awards include:
- ANA KMVL Prize for Poetry – ₦200,000
- ANA King Dakolo Prize for Fiction Novel – ₦100,000
- ANA Prize for Drama (Play) – ₦100,000
- ANA Amina Talaku Zakama Prize for Literary Criticism – ₦100,000
- ANA Sir Chukwuemeka Sam Nwelue Prize for Non-Fiction – ₦100,000, covering creative non-fiction, travelogues, biographies, memoirs, and essay collections of no less than 100 pages
- ANA Ngozi Chuma-Udeh Prize for Children’s Fiction (Prose) – ₦100,000
Eligible works must be the author’s original creation and must not have been previously submitted for any ANA prize. Multiple entries are allowed as long as they comply with the competition’s rules. In categories with limited submissions, the ANA reserves the right to award the prize only if the work is deemed deserving, defer the prize to a later year, or, in the absence of entries, recognize a deserving book with a certificate and plaque, though without a cash award.
The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2026. A shortlist of nominated works will be announced in August 2026, with winners revealed during the ANA Dinner Night at the 2026 ANA Annual Convention, scheduled for October 29 to November 1, 2026.
The association encourages all eligible authors to participate, highlighting the prizes as a platform for promoting literary excellence and celebrating Nigeria’s rich literary talent.