Doing a little research on literary works from Africa, I came across many great writers and works that are simply genius! Indeed, our culture of storytelling and history keeping has metamorphosed from gathering by the moonlight for stories, sing-along songs and storied historical moments into what today can be simply described as art. Art that has commanded attention internationally and is marking Africa as a literary giant.
I find that African Literature resonates with a passion and quiet strength that is both entertaining and evocatively spell binding.
Thus, I thought I'd dedicate a post to a few of the bodies and organizations that have helped to recognize, support and encourage literary talent from Africa. In alphabetical order, the top prizes for African literature are:
The Caine Prize for African Writing
First awarded in 2000, the prize is open to writers from anywhere in Africa and for work published in English. It has received at one time, entries from 20 countries. It is awarded to a short story written by an African either in Africa or abroad.
The idea of the Caine prize was brought to life by friends and colleagues of late Sir Michael Caine, who was working on the idea of such a prize before he passed on.
Prize
The cash prize is £10,000.
Patrons
Patrons for this prize include; African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature - Wole Soyinka, Nadine
Gordimer and J M Coetzee. Also, Chinua
Achebe, winner of the Man Booker International Prize and Ben Okri,
Nigerian Winner of the Booker Prize.
Past Winners
2012 - Rotimi Babatunde (Nigeria) 'Bombay's Republic' from 'Mirabilia Review' Vol.
3,Lagos 2011.
2011 - NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) 'Hitting Budapest' from 'The Boston Review' Vol 35/6 Dec 2010
2010 - Olufemi Terry (Sierra Leone) 'Stickfighting Days' from 'Chimurenga' vol 12/13.
Noma Award for Publishing in Africa
One of the Noma Prizes series, within four years of its
establishment, it became the major book award in Africa. Established by
Shoichi Noma who died in 1984, it was awarded annually to any new book
published in the Juvenile, Literature or Scholarly category. Books in
any language of Africa could be entered for the prize. It ran from 1980 - 2009 when the Noma family ceased their sponsorship.
Prize
The cash prize was $10,000.
Past Winners
2009 - 'Lawless and Other Stories' by Sefi Atta
2008 - 'Beginnings of a Dream' by Zachariah Rapola
2007 - 'Strife' by Shimmer Chinodya
Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
Founded by The Lumina Foundation, it was first awarded in 2005 to Nobel Laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka. The pan-African prize is awarded every two years to works of any genre or type, written in English or French and which have not won any other awards.
Prize
The cash prize is $20,000.
Past Winners
2012 - 'Young Blood' by Sisifo Mzobe
2010 - 'I Do Not Come To You By Chance' by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
- 'Coconut' by Kopano Matlwa
- 'Tenants of The House' by Wale Okediran
2008 - 'Zarah The Windseeker' by Nnedi Okorafor
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
2013 Reads
So,here are a few of the books I have on my radar for the first half of this year...
Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre - Novel
Available in paperback, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Synopsis
A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as "the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe," Half of a Yellow Sun recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and the chilling violence that followed.
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and they must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.
Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in paperback, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Synopsis
Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.
When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father's authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new.
"At once the portrait of a country and a family, of terrible choices and the tremulous pleasure of an odd, rare purple hibiscus blooming amid a conforming sea of red ones" — San Francisco Chronicle
Now with a review like that, I just want to go out and buy the book already. I love reading about choices people make and consequences, it is like gaining the experiences without feeling the pain. I hope that doesn't sound too weird? Lol.... Mountains Of The Moon by I.J. Kay
Genre - Fiction
Available in paperback, Kindle
"A woman in her thirties is released from prison, with a new name and not much else. She begins to make a fresh start but the present is soon invaded by fragments from her past. Unsettling, hallucinatory and without precedent, Mountains of the Moon is the tragic account of a broken life, but, against all expectation, it amounts to something utterly beautiful."
A story about overcoming odds, i added this to my list when i came across it on Amazon and its rated 5 stars too. Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in Hardcover, Goodreads
Synopsis
"Murder at the Vicarage" marks the debut of Agatha Christie's unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head. No one heard the shot. There are no leads. Yet, everyone surrounding the vicarage seems to have a reason to want the Colonel dead. It is a race against the clock as Miss Marple sets out on the twisted trail of the mysterious killer without so much as a bit of help from the local police."
This isn't exactly a new book, in fact its old, first published in 2006, but its the beginning of the 'Miss Marple' character series and having read a few of the sequels(Body In The Library,and A Murder Is Announced) I've always wanted to go back to see how it started. Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in hardcover, Goodreads
Synopsis
Kill Alex Cross is faster, more exciting, and more tightly wound than any Alex Cross thriller James Patterson has ever written!
The President's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high up is using the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to keep him off the case and in the dark.
A deadly contagion in the water supply cripples half of the capital, and Cross discovers that someone may be about to unleash the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. As his window for solving both crimes narrows, Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes – one that may alter the fate of the entire country.
Trying to keep up with James Patterson is just not possible and I gave up but now that Tyler Perry is playing Alex Cross,(I think that's just awesome by the way, never mind that so many people have their reservations about Tyler Perry being such a hard guy) I can't wait to pick this and catch up.
Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre - Novel
Available in paperback, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Synopsis
A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as "the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe," Half of a Yellow Sun recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and the chilling violence that followed.
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and they must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.
Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in paperback, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Synopsis
Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.
When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father's authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new.
"At once the portrait of a country and a family, of terrible choices and the tremulous pleasure of an odd, rare purple hibiscus blooming amid a conforming sea of red ones" — San Francisco Chronicle
Now with a review like that, I just want to go out and buy the book already. I love reading about choices people make and consequences, it is like gaining the experiences without feeling the pain. I hope that doesn't sound too weird? Lol.... Mountains Of The Moon by I.J. Kay
Genre - Fiction
Available in paperback, Kindle
"A woman in her thirties is released from prison, with a new name and not much else. She begins to make a fresh start but the present is soon invaded by fragments from her past. Unsettling, hallucinatory and without precedent, Mountains of the Moon is the tragic account of a broken life, but, against all expectation, it amounts to something utterly beautiful."
A story about overcoming odds, i added this to my list when i came across it on Amazon and its rated 5 stars too. Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in Hardcover, Goodreads
Synopsis
"Murder at the Vicarage" marks the debut of Agatha Christie's unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head. No one heard the shot. There are no leads. Yet, everyone surrounding the vicarage seems to have a reason to want the Colonel dead. It is a race against the clock as Miss Marple sets out on the twisted trail of the mysterious killer without so much as a bit of help from the local police."
This isn't exactly a new book, in fact its old, first published in 2006, but its the beginning of the 'Miss Marple' character series and having read a few of the sequels(Body In The Library,and A Murder Is Announced) I've always wanted to go back to see how it started. Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
Genre - Fiction, Novel
Available in hardcover, Goodreads
Synopsis
Kill Alex Cross is faster, more exciting, and more tightly wound than any Alex Cross thriller James Patterson has ever written!
The President's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high up is using the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to keep him off the case and in the dark.
A deadly contagion in the water supply cripples half of the capital, and Cross discovers that someone may be about to unleash the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. As his window for solving both crimes narrows, Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes – one that may alter the fate of the entire country.
Trying to keep up with James Patterson is just not possible and I gave up but now that Tyler Perry is playing Alex Cross,(I think that's just awesome by the way, never mind that so many people have their reservations about Tyler Perry being such a hard guy) I can't wait to pick this and catch up.
Recent Reads
One of the To-dos on my new years resolution this year was to read more literary works by Nigerian authors alongside the numerous westerns that I read like my life depends on it. Recently, no thanks to school work and life generally, I haven't been reading as many as usual and I kind of want to pick up the slack a bit. This is one that I read last year and enjoyed.
Lagos Life, London Living by Bobo Omotayo
(Hard cover)
Interestingly titled, it is a collection of 37 short stories based on the writer's experiences and makes for very easy reading (it as been tagged "Coffee-table" by the experts). For me, it is simply a delightful book written with wit, honesty, lots of satirical comic, illustrations and interesting photos. The writer definitely takes you on the narrated journeys.
Plot
The book covers his experiences in two very different but similar cities with slangs and colloquialisms from both documented.
(Hard cover)
Interestingly titled, it is a collection of 37 short stories based on the writer's experiences and makes for very easy reading (it as been tagged "Coffee-table" by the experts). For me, it is simply a delightful book written with wit, honesty, lots of satirical comic, illustrations and interesting photos. The writer definitely takes you on the narrated journeys.
Plot
The book covers his experiences in two very different but similar cities with slangs and colloquialisms from both documented.
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