Prize: Etisalat Prize for Literature

       Oil-behemoth Etisalat set up the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children's Literature a few years ago, and now Etisalat (Nigeria) has apparently endowed an African first novel prize, the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
       As reported at 360Nobs, Africans can win big as £15,000 Etisalat Prize for Literature is launched, as:

The Etisalat Prize for Literature is the first ever pan-African prize to applaud first time writers of published fiction novels. The prize will bring together high profile writers, book critics and academics from across the continent and beyond to identify new writers of African descent. Submitted works must be the writer's first fiction novel of over 30,000 words and which has been published in the last twenty-four months.

       There's an interesting criteria regarding submissions:

Entries for the Fiction Novel category opens today the 5th of June to publishers who have published a minimum of five authors in the last three years.

       Apparently there will also be a 'Flash Fiction Short Stories' prize, though it isn't entirely clear what that will involve.