The Committee For Relevant Art (CORA), will be hosting a Book Party for the authors long listed for the Nigeria Literature Prize for 2014.The event comes up at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island on Sunday August3, 2014, at 2pm.
This edition of the Book Party is the sixth annual event dedicated to providing an interface between authors who make the long list of the prestigious prize and the reading public.
CORA insists on having this feast every year as part of the intervention in spreading the word about The Nigerian Book. It’s one of our several outreach programmes for the book (including Book Trek in Secondary Schools and Publishers Forum).
“We find ourselves in the vanguard of expanding the membership of the community of book lovers. This party is one of the several events we organize to make books look cool”,says Jahman Anikulapo, CORA’s Programme Chair.
The long listed authors and their works include: John Friday Abba – Alekwu Night Dance; Patrick Ogbe Adaofuyi – Canterkerous Passengers; Soji Cole – Maybe Tomorrow; Paul Edema – A Plague of Gadflies; Jude Idada – Oduduwa, King of the Edos; Onshore Ruth Momodu – No Fault of Mine; Attah Isaac Ogezi – Under a Darkling Sky; Julie Okoh– Our Wife Forever; Ade Solanke – Pandora’s Box; Arnold Udoka – Akon and Sam Ukala – Iredi War..
The Book Party is actually a full party, which means there will be food, drinks and merrymaking apart from book readings and discussions. Crown Trope of Africa will present excerpts from their recent experimental interpretation of Soyinka’s Dance of the Forests while Aduke Aladekomo and her band , Sticks, Strings and Voices will thrill the audience. The event is facilitated by the Nigeria LNG, sponsors of the Nigeria Prize for Literature.
The Nigeria Prize for Literature was established by Nigeria LNG Limited as part of their corporate citizenship programme and commitment to the development of Nigerian society. Its advisory board includes Professors Ayo Banjo, Jerry Agada, and Ben Elugbe. The Prize is awarded annually and rotates between four literary genres: prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature. This year’s focus was drama, and the list of 11 was drawn from a total of 124 entries. The long listed authors and plays are:
The shortlist of three playwrights will be announced in September, and the winner of the $100,000 prize in October. Previous winners of the prize include Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo in 2007 for children’s literature, Chika Unigwe in 2012 for prose fiction, and Tade Ipadeola in 2013 for poetry.
