Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award Ceremony
The 2026 Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award celebrated a landmark fifth year with a vibrant ceremony hosted by Dr Shidong Wang, Director of OPGDI and Professor Christine Gerrard, Former Director of TORCH. Marking its fifth year, the Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award attracted one of its strongest fields to date, with judges noting both the exceptional quality and diversity of submissions. The final judging panel, chaired by Professor Elleke Boehmer, praised the originality and vibrancy of the shortlisted pieces, noting that the panellists found it difficult to select a top 3 from such a strong array of stories.
The award ceremony this year, jointly hosted by OPGDI and TORCH – was held at the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Students, academics and guests gathered to celebrate the shortlisted writers and hear reflections from members of the judging panel. The Award is an initiative of the Mo Yan International Writing Centre dedicated to fostering literary talent and promoting cross-cultural dialogue between East and West, and once again proved to attract an outstanding range of talents from across the collegiate university, with stories covering themes of advocacy, culture, familial ties and modern technology.
The final judging panel, consisting of Professor Elleke Boehmer, Professor Wes Williams, Professor Sonia Antoranz Contera and Mr Frank Wynne, faced the challenging task of selecting winners from this impressive range of entrants.
The award for the winner of the Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award 2026 was given to Joshua Chizoma, of Wadham College, for his story The Great Aba Miracle Crusade. Joshua was praised for his work, as a ‘coming-of-age story about faith, belonging, and the difficult moment when childhood hope gives way to adult understanding’.
Winner Joshua Chizoma with Prof Christine Gerrard and Prof Wes Williams
In addition to the winner, two Runners-Up awards were presented to Deliveroo Meditations by Dominic Burbidge of Regent’s Park College and The Record is Complete by Harishiga Ilangovan of Jesus College. Whilst vastly different, both stories were praised for their intellect, originality and distinctiveness.
The winners read extracts from their pieces
Final Judging Panel - Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award:
- Professor Elleke Boehmer FRSL – Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford; Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College
- Professor Sonia Antoranz Contera – Professor of Biological Physics, University of Oxford; and Fellow of Green Templeton College.
- Professor Wes Williams – Professor of French Literature, University of Oxford; and Fellow of at St Edmund Hall; former Director of TORCH (2020-2023)
- Frank Wynne – Chair of Judges for the 2022 International Booker Prize; Award-winning translator; Winner of the 2022 Dublin Literary Award.
