Hawa Jande Golakai

Hawa Jande Golakai (born 1979) is a Liberian writer and clinical scientist.

Golakai was born in Frankfurt, Germany and lived in Liberia during her childhood. Golakai fled the country as a refugee during the First Liberian Civil War. After moving, Goalkai lived in Cape Town and pursued a medical career.

Golakai received a Bachelor of Science at the University of Cape Town in 2005, specializing in cell and molecular biology. Goalkai wrote her Master of Science dissertation at Stellenbosch University in 2008.

Upon graduating from Stellenbosch University, Golakai began working at the university's Department of Biomedical Sciences. Golakai works as a clinical immunologist and studies diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV.

Golakai's debut novel The Lazarus Effect (Kwela Books) was shortlisted for the 2011 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize, and was longlisted for the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. On the strength of the book, in 2012 Zukiswa Wanner in The Guardian rated Golakai as one of the "top five African writers".The Lazarus Effect was published in 2016 by Cassava Republic Press in the UK.

Golakai's second novel, The Score (Kwela Books) will be released in the UK in 2017. She won critical acclaim for her 2016 essay "Fugee", a personal account of the Ebola crisis in Liberia, commissioned for the anthology Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction, edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, in partnership with Commonwealth Writers and published by Cassava Republic Press.

Golakai was a mentor for the 2015 Writivism programme, a judge for the Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize 2015 and is a judge for the 2016 Short Story Day Africa prize.

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