Troy Onyango

Troy Onyango is a London-based writer and editor from Kisumu, Kenya, and the founder of Lolwe, a Pan-African literary and arts platform. He is also the owner of Lolwe Books, an independent Pan-African bookshop with branches in both Kenya and the UK. He was a judge for the 2026 International Booker Prize and the Novel Beginnings Competition.

His debut collection of short stories, For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings, was published in 2022. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Doek!, Wasafiri, Isele Magazine, Johannesburg Review of Books, AFREADA, Dgëku Magazine, Nairobi Noir, and Transition, among other publications. He was the winner of the inaugural Nyanza Literary Festival Prize and a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Future Awards Africa, the Short Story Day Africa Prize, Black Letter Media Competition, and the Brittle Paper Awards. He has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. An alumnus of the Caine Prize Workshop, Miles Morland Workshop, Jalada Workshop, Goethe Workshop, and the Kwani?-SLS Workshop, he has also been a writer-in-residence at the Ebedi Writers Residency in Nigeria.

He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi, an MA in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the University of East Anglia—where he was a Miles Morland Foundation Scholar—and an MA in African Studies from SOAS University of London.