Archive for the ‘Nigeria’ Category
by Lindsay on May 24th, 2013
Nigerian author Elnathan John has been shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story “Bayan Layi”, published in Issue 25 of Per Contra. John is up against fellow Nigerians Tope Folarin, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Chinelo Okparanta, as well as Pede Hollist from Sierra Leone, for the £10 000 prize, the winner of which will be announced on 8 July.
While you await the announcement of the award, we invite you to read “Bayan Layi”:
The boys who sleep under the Kuka tree in Bayan Layi like to boast about the people they have killed. I never join in because I have never killed a man. Banda has, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. He just smokes wee-wee while they talk over each other’s heads. Gobedanisa’s voice is always the loudest. He likes to remind everyone of the day he strangled a man. I never interrupt his story even though I was there with him and saw what happened. Gobedanisa and I had gone into a lambu to steal sweet potatoes, but the farmer had surprised us while we were there. As he chased us, swearing to kill us if he caught us, he fell into a bush trap for antelopes. Gobedanisa did not touch him. We just stood by and watched as he struggled and struggled and then stopped struggling.
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- A Life in Full and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2010 by The Caine Prize for African Writing
EAN: 9781906523374
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by Carolyn on May 23rd, 2013
The late author Chinua Achebe is to be buried today on his family compound in the town of Ogidi, after his remains arrived in his home country, Nigeria, on Tuesday.
Achebe passed away on 22 March at the age of 82 in Boston, Massachussetts in the US. A memorial service was held for the great writer in South Africa on 28 March.
Yesterday about 2 000 admirers paid their last respects to Achebe at a stadium in Awka in Anambra state in Nigeria’s southeast. Today, Achebe will be buried following a service at a local Anglican church in Ogidi.
It is reported that several Nigerian leaders, foreign dignitaries and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, will be attending the funeral, while The Washington Post points out that Achebe “hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing”.
OGIDI, Nigeria — Writer Chinua Achebe, whose works focused on the conflict between modernity and the way of life in rural Nigeria, has returned home for the final time.
Achebe’s corpse arrived Wednesday in his native Anambra state. There, local government officials and writers feted the late novelist, who died in March at the age of 82. While the man himself hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing.
Al Jazeera reports from the funeral service:
The funeral of Nigeria’s celebrated writer, Chinua Achebe, is due to take place in his small hometown in a ceremony expected to draw crowds of mourners.
Achebe, author of the widely praised novel Things Fall Apart, will be buried on Thursday, two months after he died in the US aged 82.
His private burial on the family compound will follow a service at a local Anglican church.
GMA News was at the stadium in Awka where Achebe was honoured:
AWKA, Nigeria – The body of revered Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe arrived Wednesday in his home state in Nigeria, where hundreds of admirers packed a stadium to pay tribute a day ahead of his funeral.
A wooden coffin transported the body of Achebe, the celebrated author of the novel “Things Fall Apart”, who died in March in the United States at age 82.
The Guardian Nigeria looks at the weeklong transition activities which started on Sunday:
PROMINENT Nigerians from all walks of life continued their effusion of tributes as they paid their last respect to the master storyteller, Prof. Chinualumogu Achebe, who died on March 21 in the United States (U.S.), just as his remains will be interred today in his hometown, Ogidi, Anambra State.
In Abuja, where the weeklong transition activities started on Sunday, the literary giant was eulogised for blazing the trail that others followed. Among the dignitaries during his commendation service at The National Church, Abuja, was the Primate of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, The Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, who presided.
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by Lindsay on May 23rd, 2013
Nadine Gordimer and Ben Okri joined other bestselling authors in donating an annotated copy of a first edition of one of their books to an auction in aid of English PEN.
Okri’s comments on The Famished Road included his thoughts on the first paragraph: “Worked a lot on the opening paragraph: everything is in it: all came out of it; thinking of music; the opening notes; had to get the words absolutely right or the rest won’t follow….Odd that the beginning was written last, when I knew what the work was dreaming…”
View Okri’s annotations:
Gordimer annotated The Conservationist with a long note that concludes: “I am no prophet but as a writer, the nature of a writer’s subconscious does, I seem to have seen that the “land issue” rising, growing from the past, would culminate as it exists now, in the 21st Century of dispossession. The question of equality of rights for the people of South Africa.”
View Gordimer’s annotations:
The auction was held on Tuesday in London and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone “fetched a record price of $228,000″ according to the International Business Times:
Even as the series stopped with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the magical charm of JK Rowling’s writing has not ceased. The unique, author-annotated edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” fetched a record price of $228,000 at the auction held at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Tuesday.
The Guardian have listed the annotations made by the various authors:
Amsterdam to Wolf Hall, Booker winners and bestsellers – authors including JK Rowling, Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman, Nick Hornby and Ian McEwan annotate their own first editions. The books will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next week in aid of English PEN.
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by Lindsay on May 22nd, 2013
Alert! The Sylt Foundation has named Nigerian author Chika Unigwe as the winner of the 2013 Sylt Foundation African Writer’s Residency Award. Unigwe won the Nigerian Prize for Literature last year for her novel, On Black Sisters’ Street.
Indra Wussow, Veronique Tadjo and Helon Habila were tasked with choosing the winner from a shortlist, which included Yewande Omotoso, Ufrieda Ho, Zinaid Meeran and Maaza Mengiste.
Unigwe will be granted a two month residency on the island of Sylt, off the coast of Hamburg, Germany, as part of the Sylt Foundation’s multi-disciplinary Residency Programme. Congratulations!
Chika Unigwe has been selected as the 2013 winner of the Sylt Foundation African Writer’s Residency Award. Unigwe, from Nigeria, will travel to the Sylt Foundation’s headquarters within the next few months. This new residency opportunity is to be awarded annually to writers of contemporary African literature.
The four finalists shortlisted by the three selectors: Indra Wussow, Veronique Tadjo and renowned literary writer and academic Professor Helon Habila, were all very strong contenders. Unigwe was selected as a worthy recipient of the 2013 award. The Sylt Foundation called in November 2012 for writers of contemporary African literature to apply for this two month African Writer’s Residency, offered as part of the Sylt Foundation’s multi-disciplinary Residency Programme.
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by Carolyn on May 15th, 2013
Alert! The shortlist for the Thirteenth Caine Prize for African Writing has just been announced.
This year’s list is devoid of South African entries but includes an unprecedented four Nigerian writers and one from Sierra Leone. It would seem that Rotimi Babatunde, last year’s Nigerian winner, has spurred on his compatriots.
The winner of this year’s £10,000 prize will be announced on 8 July at Bodleian Library, Oxford.
BOOK LIVE sends its congratulations to the shortlistees, as follows:
- Elnathan John (Nigeria) “Bayan Layi” from Per Contra, Issue 25 (USA, 2012)
- Tope Folarin (Nigeria) “Miracle” from Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012)
- Pede Hollist (Sierra Leone) “Foreign Aid” from Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 23.3 (Philadelphia, 2012)
- Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria) “The Whispering Trees” from The Whispering Trees, published by Parrésia Publishers (Lagos, 2012)
- Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria) “America” from Granta, Issue 118 (London, 2012)
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Press release
The shortlist for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced today (Wednesday 15 May) – and among the five stories chosen are an unprecedented four Nigerian entries.
The Chair of judges, art historian and broadcaster, Gus Casely-Hayford said, “The shortlist was selected from 96 entries from 16 African countries. They are all outstanding African stories that were drawn from an extraordinary body of high quality submissions.”
Gus described the shortlist saying, “The five contrasting titles interrogate aspects of things that we might feel we know of Africa – violence, religion, corruption, family, community – but these are subjects that are deconstructed and beautifully remade. These are challenging, arresting, provocative stories of a continent and its descendants captured at a time of burgeoning change.”
The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 8 July.
The 2013 shortlist comprises:
- Elnathan John (Nigeria) ‘Bayan Layi’ from Per Contra, Issue 25 (USA, 2012) www.percontra.net
- Tope Folarin (Nigeria) ‘Miracle’ from Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012) http://dubois.fas.harvard.edu/transition-magazine
- Pede Hollist (Sierra Leone) ‘Foreign Aid’ from Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 23.3 (Philadelphia, 2012) http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wphs20#.UZOV4bVlk_g
- Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria) ‘The Whispering Trees’ from The Whispering Trees, published by Parrésia Publishers (Lagos, 2012) http://www.parresiapublishers.com/
- Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria) ‘America’ from Granta, Issue 118 (London, 2012) www.granta.com
As always the stories will be available to read online on our website www.caineprize.com and will be published with the 2013 workshop stories in our forthcoming anthology A Memory This Size in July 2013 by New Internationalist and seven co-publishers in Africa.
Alongside Gus on the panel of judges this year are award-winning Nigerian-born artist, Sokari Douglas Camp; author, columnist and Lord Northcliffe Emeritus Professor at UCL, John Sutherland; Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, Nathan Hensley and the winner of the Caine Prize in its inaugural year, Leila Aboulela. Once again, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The award will cover all travel and living expenses. The winner will also be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2013.
Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian writer Rotimi Babatunde. He has subsequently co-authored a play Feast for the Young Vic and the Royal Court theatres in London.
Dates for the Diary
This year the shortlisted writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Over-Seas League on Thursday, 4 July at 7pm and at the Southbank Centre, on Sunday, 7 July at 6.30pm. On Friday, 5 July at 2-5pm and Saturday, 6 July at 5pm the shortlisted writers will also take part in the Africa Writes Festival at The British Library, organised by ASAUK and the Royal African Society.
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by Carolyn on May 14th, 2013
Alert! South African writer Julian Jackson has won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize – Africa Region for his story “The New Customers”, and Nigerian author EE Sule’s novel Sterile Sky has been awarded the Commonwealth Book Prize – Africa Region. The winners were chosen from shortlists that had included SA Partridge and Jamala Safari.
Jackson, along with the other regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, will get the opportunity to be published by Granta online during the week of 27 May.
Africa’s winners will now compete with the winners in the other regions (Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean and Pacific) for the overall prize. The overall winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize will be announced at Hay Festival UK on 31 May.
Congratulations and best of luck to Jackson and Sule!
Press release
The Commonwealth Foundation has announced the regional winners for the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Representing Africa, Asia, Canada & Europe, Caribbean, and the Pacific regions, these writers will now compete to become the overall winner, to be announced at Hay Festival UK on 31 May.
The Commonwealth Book Prize is awarded for the best first novel, and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the best piece of unpublished short fiction.
Part of Commonwealth Writers, the prizes unearth, develop and promote the best of new writing from across the Commonwealth, developing literary connections worldwide and consistently bringing less-heard voices to the fore. The cultural breadth of stories from this year’s regional winners includes Sri Lanka on the eve of independence from British Colonial rule, the Socialist regime of 1970s Jamaica, and a South Africa riven by apartheid.
Commonwealth Book Prize
Regional Winner, Africa
Sterile Sky, E.E. Sule (Nigeria), Pearson Education
Regional Winner, Asia
Island of a Thousand Mirrors, Nayomi Munaweera (Sri Lanka), Perera-Hussein Publishing House
Regional Winner, Canada & Europe
The Death of Bees, Lisa O’Donnell (United Kingdom), William Heinemann
Regional Winner, Caribbean
Disposable People, Ezekel Alan (Jamaica), self-published
Regional Winner, Pacific
The Last Thread, Michael Sala (Australia), Affirm Press
Commenting on the winners, Chair of the Commonwealth Book Prize, Godfrey Smith said, “Choosing the regional winners from among the 21 shortlisted books was a rewarding journey across diverse cultures, through soaring – sometimes shocking – imaginations, movingly connecting us with a fascinating range of human situations. The five regional winners are an impressive mixture of bold, ambitious, powerfully descriptive and emotionally riveting writing that will leave us with a deeper appreciation and understanding of our world.”
Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Regional Winner, Africa
“The New Customers”, Julian Jackson (South Africa)
Regional Winner, Asia
“The Sarong-Man in the Old House, and an Incubus for a Rainy Night”, Michael Mendis (Sri Lanka)
Regional Winner, Canada & Europe
“We Walked On Water”, Eliza Robertson (Canada)
Regional Winner, Caribbean
“The Whale House”, Sharon Millar (Trinidad and Tobago)
Regional Winner, Pacific
“Things with Faces”, Zoë Meager (New Zealand)
Chair of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Razia Iqbal said, “The short story is among the hardest forms to master. The five stories we chose as regional winners all pass the judges’ tests of capturing a distinctive tone; creating fulsome characters; always deft in showing, not telling; subject matter both intimate and personal, as well as ranging across political landscapes. Reading them will transport you, as all good literature does, and introduce you to voices we are sure you will hear again.”
Commonwealth Writers has partnered with Granta magazine to give regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize the opportunity to be published by Granta online during the week commencing 27 May.
John Freeman, Editor of Granta said: “The Commonwealth Short Story Prize searches across a vast territory with relentless curiosity to select the brightest new talent from each region, and this year is stronger than ever. With voices that arrest, affirm, disturb and illuminate, this new crop of writers turn our expectations for what a story can do, and of where they are calling from, inside out. This partnership is an example of what the magazine can be at best – a beacon for those writers we didn’t know we were missing out on – and we salute Commonwealth Writers in their continuing good work.”
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by Carolyn on May 9th, 2013
Alert! The Sylt Foundation has announced the five finalists for its African Writer’s Residency Award 2013. Books LIVE members Yewande Omotoso and Chika Unigwe have made the list along with South Africans Ufrieda Ho and and Zinaid Meeran and Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste.
The winner of the Award will be granted a two month residency as part of the Sylt Foundation’s multi-disciplinary Residency Programme. The final decision rests with selectors Indra Wussow, Veronique Tadjo and Helon Habila.
The Foundation is based on the island of Sylt, off the coast of Hamburg, Germany. The Foundation has an established residency programme which offers opportunities to South African and international visual artists, writers and photographers. It is managed under the directorship of literary scholar and curator, Wussow.
This African Writer’s Residency Award offers a two month residency to writers of contemporary African literature, who engage with contemporary themes and concerns related to Africa and the African Diaspora. The award is open to published writers of poetry, prose, plays and novels.
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by Maggie Marx on May 9th, 2013
Verdict: carrot
Pollution (in the sense of contamination caused by certain industrial processes) could be said to be the central theme of this novel by the Nigerian author Helon Habila (his third). Pollution of the Niger Delta waters and land through environmental degradation is only the most obvious kind that the novel depicts; what the author makes us realise is the human corruption of greed, irresponsibility and wanton violence that precedes the pollution of river waters and land – of which the oil-smudged natural scenery is merely the manifestation.
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by Lindsay on May 8th, 2013
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a talk titled “We should all be feminists” at TEDxEuston, which was recently shared on the TEDxTalks channel. Adichie describes first encountering the word “feminist” when she was accused of being one during a fight with a friend. She wasn’t sure what it meant so just glossed over it and made a mental note to look it up when she got home. She was later offered some unsolicited advice from a man who told her not to call herself a feminist as they are women who are unhappy because they can’t find husbands and so she decided to call herself “a happy feminist”. This had to later be amended to “a happy African feminist” after a female academic told her that feminism was un-African.
Discussing the inequality of power distribution between genders, she quoted Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, who said that “the higher you go, the fewer women there are”, and Adichie added that, “We have evolved, but it seems to me our ideas of gender have not evolved”.
In Nigeria, Adichie says that she is not allowed into reputable bars or clubs alone and when she enters a restaurant with a man, the waiter will greet him and not her. This makes her feel invisible. “I want to say, ‘I am just as human’…These are little things, but it’s the little things that sting the most.” She said that she is angry because, “gender as it functions today is a grave injustice, we should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change, but in addition to being angry, I am also hopeful because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to make and remake themselves better.”
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by Carolyn on Apr 30th, 2013
Verdict: carrot
All of us have had a dream, a dream that seems to get closer to reality with every step taken. But then once in a while, it stalls, and we lose hope of achieving it; we settle for what we have at that moment…and then out of the blue, comes this golden opportunity- our hopes and dreams are rekindled, we let go of what we have and plunge into the unknown….only to realize we have fallen into a bottomless pit, that seems to push that cherished dream away the further we go….
That is what I thought as I was reading the book Nigerians in Spaceby Deji Olukotun. Released in February 2013 by Ricochet Books, it is the author’s debut novel. The plot spans through USA, Switzerland, Paris, Nigeria and South Africa. It is a tale of murder, crime, shattered dreams, betrayal. The story features three lead characters: Wale, a Nigerian lunar geologist, Thursday Malaysius, an abalone poacher, and Melissa, a girl from Zimbabwe with a skin condition that is as scary as it is fascinating
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