Tony Okuyeme 
Literary advocate, publisher, executive producer, CEO, Quramo, and the convener of Quramo Festival of Words (QFest), Gbemi Shasore, has underscored the significance of the theme for this year’s edition of Quramo Festival of Words (QFest 2025).
Scheduled to hold from October 2nd to 5th at Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, with A Brave New World” as its theme, QFest is an annual non-profit literary, arts, and culture festival in Lagos, Nigeria, founded by Gbemi Shasore and Quramo Publishing in 2017.
Held at the Eko Hotels and Suites and other venues, it features masterclasses, book discussions, film screenings, theatre, and the Quramo Writers’ Prize.
The festival brings together creatives and industry icons to celebrate African storytelling and foster meaningful cultural exchanges, evolving from a conference to a vibrant cultural event.
Shasore, in a statement on QFest 2025, noted that a sense of possibility sits at the heart of this year’s theme.
“Returning from Algiers — where Dear Zimi, our 2023 Quramo Writers’ Prize winner, was shortlisted for the CANEX Book Factory Prize for Publishing in Africa — I came home with a renewed sense of responsibility.
That trip felt like a quiet nudge: the small labours of a modest publisher in Lagos can reach beyond our borders. It reminded me that when we nurture writers at home, their stories travel farther than we imagine,” she noted.
“That sense of possibility sits at the heart of this year’s theme: A Brave New World. Change is not an abstraction for me — it is visible in the streets, on our screens, in who reads and in how we read. It demands courage from storytellers, publishers and audiences alike. QFest 2025 was designed as a festival that meets this moment: a space where difficult histories can be held, new technologies interrogated, bold futures imagined and new writers and stories discovered through the Quramo Writers Prize. The festival opens on Thursday, the 2nd of October and runs till Sunday, the 5th of October.”
She added: “One guest I am especially proud to welcome is Prof. Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ. A writer, poet and scholar, Prof. Mũkoma teaches at Cornell University and has produced fiction and criticism that question memory, language and identity across Africa and its diaspora.
He will lead an intimate Up Close & Personal conversation on Saturday 4th of October (11:50 AM–12:40 PM) — a rare chance for festival audiences to hear directly about the ideas and the craft behind his novels and poetry.
I am also looking forward to having Stephen James Smit,h the award-winning Irish poet, and James Murua, the Kenyan writer, at the festival. For me, their presence is more than star power; it’s a reminder of the inter-generational, pan African and intercontinental conversations we’re trying to sustain at Quramo — between those who inherit our literary traditions and those who reinvent them.
“Across the programme, you will see that thread.”
According to her, the festival opens with masterclasses on Thursday, the 2nd of October, with masters of their craft like Dele Sikuade, BB Sasore, Prof. Mũkoma and Prof. Sarah Dorgbadzi, the Ghanaian storyteller at the Quramo Hub in Victoria Island. The following day, Friday, 3rd October, features a conversation with the Quramo Writers’ Prize Top Five, culminating in the evening unveiling of the 2025 winner — moments that celebrate new voices and our ongoing commitment to publish and platform them.
“Saturday holds conversations that move from the intimate — a Writers Exchange between poets Tade Ipadeola and Stephen James Smith — to the public and urgent: a carefully framed conversation on the Nigerian Civil War, 961 Days: Brothers at War.
Never Again- which aims for reflection and healing rather than recrimination with voices like Major General Akintunde Akinkunmi (rtd) and Ed Keazor, amongst other great discussants.
That afternoon, we honour film storytelling with the exclusive screening of Thicker Than Water from Nemsia Studios and, on Sunday, a moving documentary by Remi Vaughan-Richards, Sin is a Puppy That Follows You Home.”
Shasore further stated that they have “sought balance: workshops and masterclasses to sharpen craft; panels on AI, migration, climate and film distribution to test new ideas; cultural exchanges like Siamsa to remind us how stories sit inside ritual and song; and spoken-word nights that let younger voices speak directly.
These sessions are not separate acts — they are parts of one conversation about who we are, what we owe each other, and how storytelling can help us imagine safer, fairer futures.”
She recalled how CANEX showed her that the work of small presses matters on a continental stage, stressing that, “QFest is where we widen that circle — where ideas that begin in small rooms can join larger debates.
We invite everyone — readers, writers, filmmakers, students, and curious passersby — to join us in Lagos this October as we test, celebrate and reimagine what it means to be brave in a changing world.”
