The second edition of the Etisalat Prize for Literature now has a panel of judges.
Announced in Lagos penultimate Friday, it comprises renowned Nigerian writer, Sarah Ladipo-Manyika (chair); award-winning British/Sudanese writer, Jamal Mahjoub; prolific Francophone writer, Alain Mabanckou; and writer and filmmaker, Tsitsi Dangarembga.
Chair of Judges, Sarah Ladipo Manyika; Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Matthew Willsher; and one of the Judges, Tsitsi Dangaremgba at the Judges Unveil event for the 2nd edition of the Etisalat Prize for Literature which held at Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island on Friday, July 11th
Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat, Nigeria, the company that conceived the prize, Matthew Willsher, said the judges who are some of the most respected individuals in the literary world will bring in diverse experiences and expertise to the judging panel.
“They are an accomplished panel with vast amount of experience in the creative writing world,” he said at the announcement press briefing in Lagos.
Ladipo-Manyika holds a Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley, and teaches Literature at San Francisco State University. Her writings include essays, academic papers, reviews and short stories. Her first novel, Independence, is published by Legend Press (London) and Cassava Republic Press (Abuja). She was one of the inaugural judges for the prize.
Mahjoub is an award-winning writer of mixed British/Sudanese heritage. Born in London, he was raised in Khartoum where the family remained until 1990. He is also an award-winning novelist, translator and essayist. He writes in English, has published seven novels under his name and, in 2012, began writing a series of crime fiction novels under the pseudonym Parker Bilal.
Mabanckou is considered to be one of the most talented and prolific writers in the French language today and the first francophone sub-Saharan African writer to be published by Gallimard in its prestigious “collection” called La Blanche and mostly known for his critically acclaimed novel, Verre Casse (Broken Glass). His novels are published in more than 15 languages.
Dangarembga is a contemporary African feminist. She published a short story in Sweden entitled ‘The Letter’ and in 1987, she published a play in Harare entitled She No Longer Weeps.
Her real success came at age 25 with the publication of her novel, Nervous Conditions, the first to be published in English by a black Zimbabwean woman and which won her the African section of the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989. She has made many film productions, including a documentary for German television.
Launched in June 2013, it is the first pan-African prize for debut fiction writers of African citizenship.
Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo was the winner of the maiden edition with her debut fiction novel, We Need New Names. She received £15,000 in Prize money and a fellowship at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom which she gifted to runner-up, Yewande Omotoso, who got on the list for Bom Boy.