11 writers jostle for $100,000 literature prize

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11 writers jostle for $ 100,000 literature prize

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FOLLOWING Monday’s release of the 11 writers in contention for the 2013 edition of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, October can’t come soon enough for the literati anxious to know who takes home the $ 100,000 prize.
 
“This list is hot,” one of the literary journalists remarked after Kudo Eresia-Eke, General Manager, External Relations, Nigeria LNG Limited, read out the names of the shortlisted writers and their works on Monday at Southern Sun Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos.
 
With writers like Afam Akeh (Letter Home and Biafran Nights); Amatoritsero Ede (Globetrotter and Hitler’s Children); G’ebinyo Egbewo (Marsh Boy and Other Poems); Remi Raji (Sea of My Mind) and Professor Femi Osofisan (Seven Stations up the Stairways) writing as Okinba Launko on it, it is indeed a list of heavyweights.
 
Other poets on the list include Tade Ipadeola (The Sahara Testaments); Obari Gomba (Length of Eyes); Iquo Eke (Symphony of Becoming); Nnadi Amu (Through the Window of a Sandcastle); Obi Nwakanma (Birthcry) and Ogochuckwu Promise (Wild Letters).
 
Aside being accomplished poets, a significant number of the writers are also past winners of Nigerian and international literary prizes. In fact, the judges – Professors Romanus Egudu and Molara Ogundipe and Dr. Andrew Aba- have a tough task ahead in deciding who takes the $ 100,000 prize money.
 
Arguably Nigeria’s most prolific playwright, Osofisan has a number of laurels to his name. Besides, this is the second time he would be nominated for the prize sponsored by the Nigeria LNG Limited. His play, ‘Queen Amina’ made the shortlist of three for the 2005 edition won by Professor Ahmed Yerima.
 
Nwakanma, former Arts Editor of the Vanguard Newspaper is a poet, essayist and biographer. He is the author of the definitive ‘Christopher Okigbo: Thirsting for Sunlight’ and currently teaches Creative Writing and 20th Century Transnational Literatures at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, US.
 
Canada-based Ede once worked at Spectrum Books as an editor and won the 1998 ANA / Christopher Okigbo Prize for Poetry with his first collection of poems, ‘Collected Poems: A writer’s Pains & Caribbean Blues’. He is the Publisher and Managing Editor of Maple Tree Literary Supplement and was a contributing poet to the literary section of the defunct NEXT Newspaper. ‘Globetrotter and Hitler’s Children’ which has earned him the nomination was published in 2009.
 
Currently the Dean, Faculty of Arts at the University of Ibadan, Raji is the author of poetry collections including ‘Webs of Remembrance ‘, ‘Shuttlesongs America: A poetic guided tour’, ‘Lovesong for My Wasteland’ and ‘Gather My Blood Rivers of Song’ which was disqualified from the 1999 edition of the competition on a technicality.
 
Ipadeola, President of PEN Nigeria Centre and former legal adviser of the Association of Nigerian Authors , is an Ibadan, Oyo State-based lawyer. He had published two poetry collections, ‘A Time of Signs’ and ‘The Rain Fardel’ before ‘The Sahara Testaments’. In 2009, he won the Delphic Laurel in poetry with his poem ‘Songbird’ in Jeju, South Korea.
 
Former Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Akeh is the author of the collection ‘Stolen Moments’ published in 1988. The graduate of the University of Ibadan now based in the US is popular among his generation of poets though he doesn’t publish much.
 
Though not a student of the arts, Amu, has over the years carved a niche for himself as a poet. ‘Voices from the Fringe’, his first collection of poems was edited by Harry Garuba and published by Malthouse Press in 1987. In 2002, his ‘The Fire Within’ won the maiden ANA/NDDC Gabriel Okara Prize for Poetry while he published ‘Pilgrim’s Passage’ in 2004. The Abuja-based poet is respected in literary circles.
 
The youngest writer on the list, Eke is best known as a performance poet. Born in 1980 and married with two children, it is Eke’s first published collection of poems that has earned her the nomination.
 
Gomba, Literature and Creative Writing lecturer in the Department of English, University of Port Harcourt, is fast earning a reputation as an ‘angry’ poet with his works including ‘Pearls of the Mangrove’, ‘George Bush and Other Observations’, ‘Canticle of a Broken Glass’, ‘Length of Eyes’ and ‘Candlelights.’
 
He is an unashamed agitator for the Niger Delta cause as is Egbewo, who is making a second appearance on the Nigeria Prize for Literature nomination list.
 
The second female shortlisted writer, Ogochukwu is a recipient of awards including the 1999 ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize for her My Mother’s Eyes Speak Volumes and the 2000 Okigbo Poetry Prize for Poetry in Africa for her collection: Canals In Parado. She also made the 2005 shortlist of the NLNG.
 
“The list was arrived at after three months of intensive scrutiny by the panel of judges,” Eresia-Eke said of the process of pruning the 201 entries to 11 at Monday’s press parley.
 
On the process of evaluating the entries, Professor Egudu, himself a poet, literary critic and former President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters said criteria used include style, scope, artistic integrity, thematic focus, general contribution of the work to the problems of literature and production quality of the work.
 
On the three writers based abroad and who made the list, Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, chairman of the advisory board said: “It’s a very good thing because the fear of everybody when the prize was thrown open to Nigerians anywhere in the world was that internal writers would be completely swamped but of the 11 , eight are internal writers. Internal writers are not doing too badly at all.”
 
It will be recalled that Chika Unigwe, a Nigerian writer based in Belgium won last year’s prize with her ‘On Black Sisters’ Street’. The prize was thrown open to Nigerians at home and abroad in 2010.
 
Professor Banjo also expressed optimism that unlike what happened four years ago when the prize was not awarded for poetry, a winner will emerge for this edition because “there has been a noticeable improvement in the quality of entries.”
 
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