Wole Talabi

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]

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)

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)