John C. Zacharis First Book Award
Ploughshares is pleased to present Olufunke Grace Bankole with the annual John C. Zacharis First Book Award for her novel, The Edge of Water (Tin House, 2025). The $1,500 award, which is named after Emerson College’s former president, honors the best debut book by a Ploughshares writer, alternating annually between poetry and fiction. This year’s judge was Jamil Jan Kochai, author of 99 Nights in Logar (Viking, 2019) and winner of the 2021 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. About The Edge of Water, Kochai writes:
The Edge of Water is a multigenerational epic spanning decades and continents, and yet, it is the intimacy of the details, the characterization, and its ever-shifting relationships that set the story apart. At once tragic and enchanting, The Edge of Water explores the nature of identity and trauma and migration and fate with a deft touch and a visionary’s eye.
Olufunke Grace Bankole is a Nigerian American writer. The Edge of Water (Tin House, 2025), her debut novel, is the winner of the Westport Prize for Literature. It has been praised widely and named a Best Book at several outlets, including Oprah Daily and Apple Books. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Bankole’s work has appeared in various publications, including Glimmer Train, AGNI, New Letters, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She won the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, and has received honors from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Literary Arts, and more. She lives in Oregon. Jamil Jan Kochai wrote the following questions for Bankole about The Edge of Water and her process.
Jamil Jan Kochai: The Edge of Water is a novel that brilliantly utilizes multiple narrators across generations. How did you go about discovering the voices of each of your narrators?
Olufunke Grace Bankole: Thank you! I didn’t enter the novel attempting to write a multi-narrator book; the story began as that of one woman, trying to make her way in Ibadan, Nigeria and then in New Orleans. The multiple narrators grew out of my recognizing—after a good deal of writing—that the experiences and perspectives of the various emerging characters were necessary to tell the most truthful story of the main character’s life. Amina, the main character, is part of a family, a community, a culture, the physical and spirit realms, and the book’s storytelling needed to reflect the several aspects that influenced and impacted her. So it became necessary for me to give the secondary characters like Esther, Joseph, Iyanifa, and Orunmila the Oracle their own chapters.
JJK: What about the structure of your novel? Did it emerge as you were writing, or did you have this structure in mind beforehand?
OGB: Absolutely, it emerged as I was writing. The novel employs several narrators, including a disembodied Yoruba deity; the epistolary form; cowrie-shell divination at the opening of each chapter; multiple timelines; a few settings. I had a more streamlined and linear structure in mind initially, and then as I began writing, it became clear to me that the novel needed to reflect the layered complexity of the worlds, cultures, and daily experiences of the characters.
JJK: How do you think about audience when writing? Did you envision a particular reader for your novel?
OGB: For The Edge of Water I had an audience in mind: lovers of African literature—quite broad, I realize! These days I tend to think about my audience as a reader who wants to know more about these particular characters living interesting lives. And this reader may or may not be familiar with the culture and place these characters inhabit—but that doesn’t matter because this reader loves stories, cares about language, and is eager for wherever the journey might lead. I imagine in my mind’s eye that I’m writing for a very curious and willing reader.
JJK: What did you learn from writing the novel?
OGB: I learned that there is no clear road map for writing a novel. Even with something of an outline in hand—a lightly-held one, to be transparent—I had to sort the story out as I went along. At certain points throughout writing The Edge of Water, I had to decide whether to go straight ahead or turn left or right. I continually reassessed what best served the story, and every now and then I would have to go back and reroute. I’m starting my new novel with the understanding that this story will most likely require a completely new path than the one I took with my previous work.
JJK: What inspires you to write now?
OGB: After completing final edits to The Edge of Water and releasing the manuscript to my editor, a part of me worried that I might not have it in me to begin and complete another novel. And the lead-up to publication and all it entails meant that I took time away from writing. But the time away has actually been very good for my process because I had a chance to miss writing and be reminded that there is always a story to tell. What I know for now is that I’m drawn to the less-told stories of ordinary people having extraordinary experiences. And as I’m working on my next novel, I’m inspired by the challenge of attempting to tell this new story in a compelling way.
