Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

Khadija Abdullah Bajaber is a Mombasa-born poet and novelist. She is best known for her 2021 novel The House of Rust, for which she was awarded the 2018 Graywolf Press Africa Prize. The novel later won the 2022 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize.

Early life and education

Bajaber is a Kenyan of Hadhrami descent. She writes about the ill-documented history of the Hadhrami diaspora. Her work has been published in Brainstorm Kenya and Enkare Review. She lives in Mombasa, Kenya and holds a degree in journalism.

The manuscript for The House of Rust was chosen from nearly 200 submissions by judge A. Igoni Barrett, author of Blackass, in conjunction with the Graywolf editors. Bajaber received a $12,000 advance. In addition, 66th&2nd agreed to publish The House of Rust in Italy, a partnership that was planned continue with the Graywolf Press Africa Prize going forward.

Judge A. Igoni Barrett said: "The House of Rust is an exhilarating journey into the imagination of an author for whom the fantastic is not only written about, it is performed on the page. Khadija Abdalla Bajaber has infused new life into the age-old story of adventure on the high seas—with this heroic first novel she has struck deep into that mythic realm explored by everyone from Homer to Hemingway."

In 2024, Bajaber participated in Macondo Literary Festival. She led a session "that explored the concept of using the familiar to write the strange — the concept of grounding unusual or fantastical elements in relatable experiences or settings."

As of 2025, Bajaber is the assistant fiction editor for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel.

Works

Novels

Poetry

Short fiction