They've announced the longlist for the Etisalat Prize for Literature, a new "pan-African prize celebrating first time writers of published fiction books".
Overall, it sounds pretty good -- except for the one dreadful restriction, that entered books have to be: "first published in English". Because, you know, Africans surely can't write in other languages ..... (Indeed, I would think there'd be a strong case to encouraging entries in other languages, if you really want to foster African literature -- and by excluding fiction written in Arabic (and, to a lesser extent, French and Portuguese) you're excluding huge swaths of African fiction (and by excluding all the other languages you're excluding a vast number of smaller swaths)
Despite the language limit (which helps explain why five of the nine finalists are Nigerian ...) it looks like a pretty interesting longlist -- and it certainly is great to see new African talent getting this attention (it's a first-book prize, after all, so established writers with more than one under their belts aren't eligible). A nice idea: 1,000 copies of each of the the three shortlisted titles (announced 15 January) will be purchased by Etisalat -- nice support for the publishers of these, and a great way of making sure the books get into some circulation.
The winner of the £15,000 prize will be announced 23 February.
Overall, it sounds pretty good -- except for the one dreadful restriction, that entered books have to be: "first published in English". Because, you know, Africans surely can't write in other languages ..... (Indeed, I would think there'd be a strong case to encouraging entries in other languages, if you really want to foster African literature -- and by excluding fiction written in Arabic (and, to a lesser extent, French and Portuguese) you're excluding huge swaths of African fiction (and by excluding all the other languages you're excluding a vast number of smaller swaths)
Despite the language limit (which helps explain why five of the nine finalists are Nigerian ...) it looks like a pretty interesting longlist -- and it certainly is great to see new African talent getting this attention (it's a first-book prize, after all, so established writers with more than one under their belts aren't eligible). A nice idea: 1,000 copies of each of the the three shortlisted titles (announced 15 January) will be purchased by Etisalat -- nice support for the publishers of these, and a great way of making sure the books get into some circulation.
The winner of the £15,000 prize will be announced 23 February.