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Essay Feature: 2026 Disquiet Prize

Ninth Letter is honored to feature Amanda Borquaye’s essay “Wayward,” which is the Disquiet International Literary Award’s Nonfiction Prize winner for 2026.

Though “Wayward” takes place almost entirely in a cab taking Borquaye from a dance club to her home, this short ride is filled with more than a few telling side trips of memory. Borquaye may appear to be sitting alone in the backseat, but she is sharing the ride with her extended family: Ghanaian-Americans who have strong opinions about whether she is “wayward” or not, or has been, or someday will be.

And what is this “wayward,” exactly? Wayward is the path that protects you from unconventionality, from the strong pull of being different, from the fate of being circled by gossip. Yet while the fear of being wayward is something that must be unlearned, it is also a reminder that “I am someone’s hopes and dreams because this world deprived them of their own.”

At the end of the ride, Borquaye’s app announces, “You have arrived at your destination.” But where is that, really? That there are no easy answers is a testimony to the emotional complexities and the empathetic wisdom of this prize-winning essay.

—Philip Graham, Editor-at-Large