Wole Talabi

Wole Talabi
Born	Oluwole Talabi (1986-02-28) 28 February 1986 (age 39) Warri, Delta State, Nigeria
Nationality	Nigerian
Other names	The Alchemist [1]
Occupation(s)	Author, editor
Notable work	Africanfuturism: An Anthology (2020), Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (2023)

Oluwole Talabi (born 28 February 1986) is a Nigerian science fiction writer, engineer, and editor, ^{[1] [2] [3]} who is considered among the Third Generation of Nigerian Writers. ^[4]

Early life and background

Wole was raised in Warri, Delta, a city in southern Nigeria, where his father was a chemical engineer, before later moving to Benin. ^[1]

His works include an amount of short stories; the anthologies These Words Expose Us: An Anthology (2014), Lights Out: Resurrection (2016), Africanfuturism: An Anthology (2020); his collections, Incomplete Solutions (2019) and Convergence Problems (2024); and the debut novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (2023). He was described in Scientific American as "an author who blends transhumanism and the Turing test". ^[5]

He married Rocío Vizuete Fernandez in 2023 at Madrid, Spain. ^[6]

Awards and recognition

Caption text

Year	Work	Award	Category	Result	Reference
2017	Wednesday's Story	Nommo Award	Best Short Story	Shortlisted	[7]
2018	The Regression Test			Won	[8]
2020	Incompleteness Theories		Best Novella	Won	[9]
	When We Dream We Are Our God		Best Short Story	Shortlisted	[9]
2021	Africanfuturism: An Anthology	Locus Award	Best Anthology	Finalist	[10]
2022	"An Arc of Electric Skin"	Nommo Award	Best Short Story	Shortlisted	[11]
	"Blowout"	Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award		Honorable Mention	[12]
	"A Dream of Electric Mothers"	Sidewise Award for Alternate History	Short Form	Won	[13]
2023		Hugo Award	Best Novelette	Finalist	[14]
2024	Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon	Crawford Award		Honorable Mention	[15]
		Nommo Award	Best Novel	Won	[16]
		World Fantasy Award	Best Novel	Finalist	[17]

After winning his third Nommo Award in 2024, and having won on all three prose categories, he announced that he would decline any future nominations to clear the field for new writers. ^{[18] [19]}

Bibliography

Novels

• Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (2023)

Collections

• Incomplete Solutions (2019)
• Convergence Problems (2024)

Anthologies

• Lights Out: Resurrection (2016)
• Africanfuturism: An Anthology (2020)
• Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology (2023)

Short Fiction

• "Zombies" (2013)
• "Crocodile Ark" (2014)
• "Eye" (2015)
• "A Short History of Migration in Five Fragments of You" (2015)
• "Nested" (2016)
• "Wednesday's Story" (2016)
• "If They Can Learn" (2016)
• "Necessary and Sufficient Conditions" (2016)
• "I, Shigidi" (2016)
• "The Last Lagosian" (2016)
• "Home Is Where My Mother's Heart Is Buried" (2017)
• "Nneoma" (2017)
• "The Regression Test" (2017)
• "The Harmonic Resonance of Ejiro Anaborhi" (2018)
• "Drift-Flux" (2018)
• "When We Dream We Are Our God" (2019)
• "Incompleteness Theories" (2019)
• "Abeokuta52" (2019)
• "Tends to Zero" (2019)
• "Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application for An Eternal Spirit Core" (2021)
• "An Arc of Electric Skin" (2021)
• "A Dream of Electric Mothers" (2022)
• "Blowout" (2023)
• "Aboukela52" (2023)
• "Debut" (2024)
• "Embers" (2024)
• "Gamma (or: Love in the Age of Radiation Poisoning)" (2024)
• "Ganger" (2024)
• "Lights in the Sky" (2024)
• "Nigerian Dreams" (2024)
• "Performance Review" (2024)
• "Silence" (2024)
• "The Million Eyes of a Lonely and Fragile God" (2024)

References

1. Ryman, Geoff (7 February 2019). "Wole Talabi: 100 AFRICAN WRITERS OF SFF – PART THIRTEEN: THE TRAVELERS" . Strange Horizons . No. 100. Lagos. p. 13. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
2. Walton, Jo Lindsay (29 April 2020). ""The big idea": An interview with Wole Talabi". Vector . No. 289. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
3. Moreno-Garcia, Silvia; Tidhar, Lavie (21 May 2021). "A magical selection of African speculative fiction". Borneo Bulletin Online . Retrieved 1 October 2021.
4. Umezurike, Chukwuebuka (23 January 2022). "New Nigerian Literature Unsung Heroes". ThisDay Newspaper . Retrieved 23 January 2022.
5. Brady, Amy (1 July 2021). "Exploring Black Sci-Fi, Learning through Color, the Cost of Cooling, and Other New Books". Scientific American . Retrieved 1 October 2021.
6. Ghosh, Kuhelika (25 August 2023). "Nigerian Speculative Fiction Author Wole Talabi Ties the Knot in Beautiful Summer Wedding". Brittle Paper . Retrieved 13 April 2024.
7. "Announcing the 2017 Nommo Award Winners". Reactor. 16 November 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
8. "2018 Nommo Awards Winners". Locus. 26 October 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
9. "2020 Nommo Awards Winners". Locus. 26 October 2020. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
10. Molly Templeton (26 June 2021). "Announcing the 2021 Locus Awards Winners". Tor.com . Retrieved 1 October 2021.
11. "2022 Nommo Awards Winners". Locus. 2 September 2022. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
12. "2022 Jim Ban Memorial Award Winner". Locus. 28 March 2022. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
13. "2022 Sidewise Award Winners". Locus. 27 October 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
14. "2023 Hugo, Astounding, and Lodestar Awards Winners". Locus. 21 October 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
15. "Chandrasekera Wins Crawford". Locus. 4 March 2024. Retrieved 5 July 2025.
16. "2024 Nommo Awards Winners". Locus. 13 August 2024. Retrieved 5 July 2025.
17. "2024 World Fantasy Awards Winners". Locus. 20 October 2024. Retrieved 5 July 2025.
18. "2024 Nommo Awards". 10 August 2024.
19. "Drink And Drop The Cup: My Nommo Award Acceptance Speech, Or Something Like It". 14 August 2024.