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Tag: Literature prize

  • Alumnus donates books, endows literature prize at Loyola College

    Alumnus donates books, endows literature prize at Loyola College

    • By Halimah Balogun 

    Nigerian American poet, playwright and philosopher, Akinyemi Onadele, has donated some of his 109 titles and endowed an annual literature prize in the sum of One Million Naira at Loyola College, Ibadan, his alma mater.

    Onadele, who is also the chairman of 1979 set of the school, expressed his commitment to promoting a better understanding and appreciation of literature.

    He said he would contribute to the school’s library with a donation of his works, stressing the value of literature despite his initial academic focus on the sciences.

    Onadele said: “My return here comes with a strong feeling of nostalgia to donate some of my works to the school library. It is not only ironic but also instructive that during my time at Loyola and in my further education, I was a science scholar, but today I am back here as a literary arts practitioner with over 109 titles in subjects that were not my favourites.

    Read Also: 11 vie for $100,000 NLNG literature prize

    “My admonition therefore to you current pupils is not to foreclose or discountenance anything in life, as life presents all kinds of opportunities in the most unlikely places. Today, I am back to give back in an area which I lacked during my time here.” 

    The Head Teacher, Akinade Akinlayo, hailed Onadele for his gesture, noting that literature in Yoruba and English were the two subjects with the lowest grades and overall performance at the final school leaving examinations in the state. 

    He said: “The books donation to the school library and the annual Aiyeko-ooto Youth Literature One Million Naira Endowment will assist in improving the performance of our pupils in Yoruba and English literature. This will also motivate the teachers who are going to be incorporated as an integral part of the endowment. So, it is a win-win to all of us at Loyola College Ibadan.”

  • 2019 NLNG’s Literature Prize gets 59 per cent increase

    The 2019 Nigeria Prize for Literature, which focuses on children’s literature, has received a 59 per cent increase compared to the number of entries it received in 2015, when the genre was last chosen for competition.

    One hundred and seventy-three (173) entries have been submitted to the Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG).

    The company also received 10 entries for the Literary Criticism prize.

    The Literature prize, now in its 15th year, has a cash prize of $100,000 while the Literary Criticism prize has N1 million.

    The number of entries was announced during the handover of the entries to the Advisory Board of the prize in Lagos.

    This, according to the Advisory Board chairman, Emeritus Prof Ayo Banjo, signified the beginning of the judging process, which will culminate in the announcement of the winner.

    During the handover, Prof Banjo recalled it was exactly 15 years after the first handover event was held.

    The eminent scholar said at the start of this year’s cycle, the board was a bit jittery over the prize not being awarded in 2015 and writers being discouraged to send in their entries.

    He added: “When the call for entries was made, entries trickled in at the beginning, but towards the deadline, it picked up and crossed the 100 mark.”

    Prof Banjo also said the board hoped the numeric strength of the entries would be matched by strength in the quality of submissions.

    “The prizes have raised the creativity in the country, whether you are writing poetry or trying to solve the problem of electricity in the country. NLNG is contributing to the emergence of original thinkers and highly creative people in the society. It has managed to do that in the space of 15 years,” he added.

    Handing over the entries to the Advisory Board, NLNG’s Manager for Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Andy Odeh, said: “As we deliver these 173 books for your vetting, we eagerly look forward to the discovery of yet another literary gem that will open up possibilities for millions of children not only in Nigeria but all over Africa.

    “We can confidently say the Nigeria Prize for Literature has brought some previously unknown Nigerian writers to public attention.”

  • Ikeogu Oke wins NLNG ‘s $100, 000 Prize

    Ikeogu Oke wins NLNG ‘s $100, 000 Prize

    THE Advisory Board of the Nigeria Prize for Literature and Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) has announced Ikeogu Oke as the winner of the 2017 edition.

    The NLNG award goes with a cash prize of $100, 000.

    The announcement was made by the Chairman of the Advisory Board for the prize, Emeritus Prof. Ayo Banjo, at a news conference in Lagos.

    Ikeogu Oke’s collection of poems, The Heresiad, emerged winner from among 184 entries received for the competition.

    According to Prof. Banjo, “Poetry competition for the prize is always very fierce and very interesting. We couldn’t have been more reassured about the process because the panel of judges did a painstakingly thorough job in selecting the best from the final shortlist of three entries.

    Chairman of the Panel of Judges, Prof. Ernest N. Emenyonu said: “The seriousness with which the NLNG literary prize is received by the teeming population of writers in Nigeria is a sign that the expectations of writers swing beyond the prize itself to that of portraying their creativity.

    “The prestige, associated with the prize saw the 184 entries of collections of poetry in various sizes and of diverse themes and set the stage for the stiff competition. At the beginning, the initial weeding was carried out following one of the primary criteria; quality and validity of publication year.

    “Oke’s poetry collection reveals a conscious/deliberate manipulation of language and philosophy in the style that reminds us of the writings of great Greek writers of Homeric and Hellenistic periods,” he added.

    General Manager, External Relations at NLNG, Kudo Eresia-Eke, said: “We at NLNG are proud of this additional achievement. National and international interest in both the prize and process are increasing and this is good for the prize and for Nigeria. We are pleased with the judges’ verdict and Mr. Ikeogu Oke has demonstrated that he is a fine poet and Nigerians need to rally around and celebrate him. We must begin to build cultural icons, the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka and Professor Chinua Achebe, and this prize is the leading project doing this right now,” he said.

    The number of entries for the 2017 edition exceeded the 2013 numbers in the same category, showing a six per cent increase in the number of entries received and increasing interest in one of the biggest literary prizes in the world. This has been the trend since 2005, the first time Poetry was in focus, and for which only 13 entries were received. The next four years would see an exponential growth in the number of entries with 160 entries in 2009 and 174 in 2013.”

    The Nigeria Prize for Literature rotates yearly among four literary genres: prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature.

  • Three shortlisted for NLNG literature prize

    Three writers have been shortlisted for this year’s literature prize.

    The list was released following the approval by the Advisory Board for The Nigeria Prize for Literature sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited.

    A statement issued by Kudo Eresia-Eke, General Manager, External Relations, for NLNG, said the announcement follows an initial shortlist of 11 which was released in August.

    The three shortlisted writers are – Tade Ipadeola (The Sahara Testaments), Amu Nnadi (through the window of a sandcastle) and Promise Ogochukwu (Wild Letters).

    According to the chairman of the Advisory Board, Emeritus Prof. Ayo Banjo, the eventual winner of the competition will be announced at a World Press Conference on 9th October 9.

    Poet and Lawyer, Ipadeola, lives in Ibadan, Nigeria, from where he writes and practices law. He has authored three volumes of poetry along with other published short stories and essays. He is the current President of PEN International, Nigeria Centre, an organization which promotes literature and advocates freedom of expression.

    Nnadi is the author of the fire within and pilgrim’s passage, two volumes of poetry well received in Nigeria. His debut volume of poetry, the fire within, won the maiden edition of ANA/NDDC Gabriel Okara Prize for Poetry.

    Nnadi, who writes poetry without punctuation and capital letters and publishes without any personal data and name, lives in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and currently works at the Niger Delta Development Commission.

    Armed with a PhD in Communication and Language Arts from the University of Ibadan, Ogochukwu has published several literary works including novels, children’s literature, short stories, drama, poetry and essays.

    In 2005, Ogochukwu was on the shortlist of three for The Nigeria Prize for Literature with her volume of poetry, Naked Among These Hills.

    Ohochukwu lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she is actively involved in various charity programmes and activities.

     

     

     

  • Three battle for $100,000 literature prize

    Three battle for $100,000 literature prize

    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.

  • Three books shortlisted for 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature

    Three books shortlisted for 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature

    The Advisory Board for the Nigeria Prize for Literature has approved a final shortlist of three books out of the initial shortlist of ten released last month.

    According to a statement signed by Ifeanyi Mbanefo, Manager, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs for NLNG, the organizer of the award, the books are Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Ngozi Achebe, Only a Canvas by Olusola Olugbesan and On Black Sister’s Street by Chika Unigwe.

    Chairman of the Board, Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, said the eventual winner of the competition will be announced on 1st November, 2012, at a world press conference in Lagos.

    Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter 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 at some point, an unloving husband. Ngozi Achebe, a medical doctor by training, lives in the United States with her children, Jennifer and Nnamdi and is a practicing physician. Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter is her first novel.

    Only a Canvas is a tale of exhilarating characters from different backgrounds with dreams intricately woven together to create a tapestry of life. Olusola Olugbesan is an architect, married with three children and writes as a hobby. Only a Canvas is Olugbesan’s first novel.

    On Black Sister’s Street tells a gripping story of the lives of four African 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. The Enugu-born graduate of English Language and Literature, Chika Unigwe, lives in Belgium. She is married with four children.