The results of the Brittle Paper Flash Fiction Competition are out, with award-winning Nigerian writer, public health enthusiast, and data analyst Mary Ipeh Osise emerging as the winner.
The competition was held as part of Brittle Paper’s debut Literary Festival for Aspiring Writers on August 29, 2026, getting more than 250 submissions from writers.
The submissions were reviewed by Submissions Editor Tahzeeb Akram.
Participants were asked to imagine the world in 2158, 200 years after Chinua Achebe published Things Fall Apart.
They were invited to consider the role of the writer in that future world, how the writer’s audience might have changed, whether writers would still exist and what would inspire or motivate them.
It was inspired by Brittle Paper’s keynote panel theme, Does the Writer Still Have a Role?
The competition challenged writers to tell their stories in just 22 words.
After reading the submissions, the organisers selected the top 10 entries before choosing the first, second and third-place winners.
Osise took first place with Know This, while McLord Selasi Azalekor placed second with The Story. Abimbola Akin took third place with The Relics.
The seven other writers in the top 10 were also recognised for their entries.
Top 10 Flash Fiction Entries
Winner: Mary Ipeh Osise — Know This
The writer is to this century what a seamstress who handstitched her clothes was to the last. Know this and know peace.
Second place: McLord Selasi Azalekor — The Story
The Archive offered to summarise humanity in one reasonable paragraph. Ama declined. She spent the rest of her life writing the footnotes.
Third place: Abimbola Akin — The Relics
Barefeet. Tattered dress. I hand over a month’s earnings to the dealer for the relics: pen and paper, my salvation from insanity.
4. Phiwe Mhlope
Where once was life, algorithms colonised. But where paper and ink remain, autonomy lies. For, of the attention economy, resistance is freedom!
5. Sandy Baffour Adu
Year 2158: I opened the novel I had been meaning to read, and imagined I would like it since Claude did not.
6. Henry Ikpo
The vision-plagued poet, after her last poem of 2158, is documented to have buried herself in coal and wailed for all eternity.
7. Blessing Obiahu
We were first Chroniclers, then Interpreters. Now, the remnants of our humanity cling to the fading pages of time, needing us, Guardians.
8. Ogieva Uyiosa Victory
Nights are dark and dangerous on Erebus, our new home planet. “Once upon a time” I begin. The monsters stop and listen…
9. NmaHassan Muhammad — The Ferry
The sun sets due east over dangerous waters, a fisherman ferrying a poet and a coffin – Rumi’s books concealed under the corpse.
10. Jean Wathugu — Bounty for the Love of a Poem
A bounty on the head for a manual penner. It is the overlord’s birthday. He desires the love of a poem.