The was elated when she learnt she made the initial shortlist.
“I was very excited to hear the news. It is an honour indeed,” Dr Ngozi Achebe, author of Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter, said.
But little did she know, then, that she would be one of the three finalists gunning for the $100,000 literature prize. The prize rotates yearly among four literary genres: prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature. This year’s edition is for prose fiction.
Alongside award-winning Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street and Only a Canvas by Olusola Olugbesan, Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter has made the final shortlist for this year’s edition of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) literary prize.
The three books crossed the hurdle of the initial shortlist released last month by the prize advisory board. It featured the famed author of Eze Goes To School, Onuora Nzekwu’s Troubled Dust; controversial author, Jude Dibia’s Blackbird; cybercrime novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwuban; The Secret lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by women rights advocate, Lola Shoneyin and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s Sarah House; Sterile Sky by Emmanuel E. Sule and Vincent Egbuson’s Zhero.
The initial shortlist, the panel of judges said, was drawn from 214 entries from Nigerians at home and abroad, adding that the number was the largest they have ever received since the prize was inaugurated in 2004. The process, according to them, took months of intensive scrutiny.
But, will any of the two women (Ngozi and Chika) clinch the prize ahead of their counterpart, Olugbesan, who is the only man standing? The three finalists will have to wait till November 1, when the winner of the competition will be announced at a world press conference at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Lagos.
Since the organisers opened the prize to Nigerian authors abroad penultimate year, the shortlist has also featured authors within and outside the country like Dr Achebe. And if you are wondering if she is in any way related to the famed Prof. Chinua Achebe, you may not be wrong. She is a practising physician living in the United States with her children, Jennifer and Nnamdi.
Her book, Onaedo -The Blacksmith’s Daughter, the author said, came from a research on about the Biafran War published in 2011. The book, which is her first, is the story of Onaedo, a young teenager of Igbo extraction, in the time before the English colonialists, her daily struggles of being a woman in a patriarchal society and how she dealt with life, love and an unloving husband.
“I hoped to raise awareness of history as entertainment, with this tale of adventure, love, politics, loss and hope. I hope I achieved all I set out to do. I aimed to highlight the coming of the Portuguese during their age of discovery in Renaissance Europe and their influence along the West African coast which had an earlier and probably as profound an impact as the British who followed them centuries later. Lagos was named from a town with an identical name in Portugal. It was in that Portuguese town that a market for African slaves was created and the first sale was described in vivid detail by an observer in 1444,” she said.
Like Dr Achebe, Unigwe, author of On Black Sister’s Street, is based abroad. The Enugu-born graduate of English Language and Literature lives in Belgium with her family. She has won several awards including the BBC Short story competition, a Commonwealth Short story competition award and the third prize in the Equiano Fiction contest.
Her novel major preoccupations are migration, neo-slavery (human trafficking and prostitution across border). On Black Sister’s Street tells a gripping story of the lives of four female protagonists (Sisi, Ama, Joyce and Efe), migrants working the red light district of Antwerp in Belgium brought together by bad luck and big dreams into a sisterhood that will change their lives.
Also like Dr Achebe, Olugbesan’s Only a Canvas is his first. It is a tale of exhilarating characters from various backgrounds with dreams intricately woven together to create a tapestry of life. He is an architect.
The organisers have also announced that from 2013 e-Book entries for the literature prize would be accepted. In addition, the advisory board, led by Professor Emeritus Ayo Banjo, said “every year, three scholars with critical works published in reputable foreign journals would be given honorary mention, commendation letters and a cash prize of $5,000.” The organisers also said they hope the incentives ould encourage scholars across the world to bring Nigerian literature to international attention.
The five-member committee of judges is headed by Francis Abiola Irele, Provost of the College of Humanities, Kwara State University and Fellow of the Dubois Institute and Harvard University.
