About
Ibrahim is a UK-based writer and editor from Nigeria. He grew up on his grandmother’s storytelling of African folklore and thus fell in love with stories, and by extension, literature. He picked his first James Hadley Chase novel at 8; and for the love of stories, was done with both the Quran and the Bible by the time he was 10.
However, after acing his JSC Exams in high school, he was forcibly sent to science class – science in Nigeria at the time was reserved for the ‘best’ students. It wasn’t until 20 long years after before he finally found his way back to his passion, in March 2019, when he left a ten-year career in media and entertainment to become a full-time writer.
Before writing happened, Ibrahim served as a channel manager at Nigezie, the first 24hr music and lifestyle channel in Nigeria; as well as general manager at both Euphoric Heritage Records and Aquila Records where he helped with the music careers of talents like Tillaman, Tekno, Base One, Airboy, among others. Between 2010 and 2018, he also worked as a publicist for brands like Samklef, Olamide, Orezi, Magnito, Do2dtun, Reloaded Magazine, and so on.
Since leaving media and entertainment, his writing has appeared (or forthcoming) on respectable literary platforms like Transition Magazine, Typehouse Literary Magazine, JMWW, Brittle Paper, the Chaffin Journal, Zone 3, Landlocked Magazine, Popula, Door is a Jar Magazine, Ake Review, The Journal of African Youth Literature, Agbowó Magazine, Interpret Magazine, Black Muslim Reads Anthology, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine, Subsaharan Magazine, the Shallow Tales Review, the Decolonial Passage, Pollux Journal, Iman Collective, Sundial Magazine, Bell Press, 100 Words of Solitude, Overtly Lit, Variety Pack, Hotch Potch, Roi Fainéant Press, SugarSugarSalt Magazine, Bella Naija, Nigerian Tribune, MEER, and more.
Ibrahim won the Quramo Writers’ Prize (2022), and was a runner-up for the Jessica George Bursary (2023), the Goge Africa Writing Contest (2020), and Ibua Journal’s Pack Light series (2020). He was a finalist for Faber Children’s FAB Prize (2023), the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship (2022), and twice for the Moon City Short Fiction Award (2022/2023). He has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2022), the Laura Kinsella Fellowship (2022), and the Dzanc Diverse Voices Prize (2021). He has multiple nominations for both the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. In July 2022, he was named Writer of the Month by Brittle Paper. He is endorsed by Arts Council England for his ‘writing exceptionalism’.
In addition to these, he was on the jury of REEL Foundation’s 2020 Young Writer’s Challenge for kids aged between 7 to 12, and he edited an anthology of the 15 best stories therein, published by Artmosterrific. Among other things, he presently serves as the managing editor of The Journal of African Youth Literature, a subject matter expert at Wordbrew, and a contributing writer at MEER. He is also a member of the Witsprouts Anthologies Advisory Board.
Ibrahim writes from the West Midlands, UK, and his work explores the human experience from an African perspective. He believes in the power of storytelling, not just for its entertainment, but more importantly, its unrivaled ability to shape minds across generations. He sees himself as a unique voice that is perhaps only one of the few opportunities the people whose realities he shares have of getting their stories told.