184 poets vie for 2017 Nigeria Prize for Literature

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8 years ago

THE process of determining the winner of the 2017 Nigeria LNG Limited-sponsored The Nigeria Prize for Literature got underway on Tuesday with the hand-over of entries to the Advisory Board of the prize.

One hundred and eighty-four 184 entries were received for this year’s prize to be awarded for poetry.

Handing over the entries, NLNG’s General Manager, External Relations, Dr Kudo Eresia-Eke, said the prize has inspired some 1,630 books of which 533, representing 32%, were submitted in the Poetry category since the inception of the prize in 2004.

He said: “We believe that the prize has inspired writers who want to deliberately win the prize. This has led to the proliferation of books and increased the quality of books. The spiralling effect of this is the boost to literacy and education in the country, the foundation of cultural and socio-economic revolution. The impact of the prize is easily discernible and we believe that it supports our vision to help build a better Nigeria.”

The entries will be examined based on their merits of excellence in language, creativity and book quality.

They were handed over to the panel of judges led by Professor Ernest Emenyonu, who teaches Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, US. The other judges are Dr Razinat Mohammed and Tade Ipadeola. Dr Mohammed is an Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Maiduguri while Ipadeola, a lawyer and writer, won the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2013 in the poetry category with his ‘The Sahara Testament.’

This year’s award will run concurrently with the Prize for Literary Criticism for which only five entries were received. Introduced in 2013, the literary criticism prize is a yearly award and carries a cash prize of N1 million.

Aside Prof Banjo, other members of the Advisory Board for the Literature Prize are Prof. Jerry Agada, former Minister of State for Education, and Professor Emeritus Ben Elugbe, former President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters.

With a cash reward of $100,000, the Nigeria Prize for Literature rotates yearly amongst prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature. The winner will be announced in October.