Nigerian novelist Chika Unigwe shares lesson she learnt after placing top three in a national writing contest

Chika Unigwe, a Nigerian author, has shared the lesson she learnt when she placed top three on a national writing contest. 

Unigwe, who is a professor of Writing at Georgia College and State University, Milledgevil, shared how an older pen pal who stopped writing to her suddenly reached out after her writing success made it to the newspapers. 

She shared her story while commenting on Anne Carson, who was awarded the 2026 Nobel Price for Literature. 

Chika wrote: 'All the posts about Anne Carson being celebrated by a university that had denied her tenure remind me of a time in secondary school when a pen pal stopped writing to me because my letters were boring (for context, he was at university). Then I placed in the top three of a national writing contest, and my name appeared in the papers. This young man wrote me a letter that began, unashamedly, with: “Everyone loves a winner.” It taught me a lesson about the benefits of success :) , and about human nature.  I never responded.'