Tanella Boni Receives Major African Literary Prize
The 2025 Tchicaya U Tam’si Prize for African Poetry
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We are delighted to congratulate our former fellow, Tanella Boni, on receiving the 2025 Tchicaya U Tam’si Prize for African Poetry, one of the most prestigious literary distinctions on the continent. The award was presented during the 46th edition of the Moussem Culturel International in Assilah, Morocco, on 9 October 2025.
Bestowed every three years, the Tchicaya U Tam’si Prize recognizes an outstanding poetic oeuvre that has profoundly shaped African letters. This year’s jury, meeting for the 13th edition of the prize, unanimously selected Tanella Boni for the depth, clarity, and human resonance of her work. Her poetry, marked by a lucid commitment to social realities, an acute attention to the complexities of identity, and a powerful literary voice for women, embodies the intellectual and artistic courage that the prize seeks to honour.
The jury, chaired by Senegalese poet and former laureate Amadou Lamine Sall, brought together prominent figures from literary and academic circles, including Bios Diallo (Mauritania), Nabil Mansar (Morocco), Abou Mbow (Senegal), Mohamed Nda (Côte d’Ivoire), Catherine Savart (France), and Hatim Betioui (Morocco). Their deliberations highlighted the coherence and singularity of Boni’s poetic trajectory as well as her sustained engagement with the social and cultural transformations of contemporary Africa.
Born in Abidjan in 1954, Tanella Boni is a major figure of African literature: a poet, novelist, essayist, and philosopher. She is the former president of the Writers’ Union of Côte d’Ivoire, an associate member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, and a central voice in the Ivorian and wider African literary landscape. Across her career, she has been honoured with numerous awards, including the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize (2005), the Antonio Viccaro Prize (2009), the Théophile Gautier Prize of the Académie Française (2018), and the Grand Poetry Prize of the Francophonie (2023).
With the Tchicaya U Tam’si Prize, Tanella Boni becomes the second Ivorian poet to receive this distinction since its creation in 1988 in homage to Congolese poet Tchicaya U Tam’si. The award celebrates her “immense poetic oeuvre,” a body of work that continues to illuminate the landscapes of African thought, imagination, and critique.
We warmly congratulate Tanella Boni on this well-deserved recognition and celebrate her enduring contributions to African and global intellectual life.