109 authors in race for 2015 The Nigerian Literature Prize

Nigerian writers from across the country and beyond have submitted a total of 109 entries for The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2015 edition. The prize is sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited. Focus this year is on Children’s Literature.

The US$100,000 literary prize rotates yearly among four literary categories of prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature. Authors competing for the award typically send in their works which are assessed by a panel of judges, comprising eminent literary scholars, with their decisions and reviews overseen by an advisory committee of equally distinguished academics and literarists.

On the panel of judges for this year’s edition are Professor Uwemedimo Enobong Iwoketok of University of Jos, who will be chairperson, with Professor Charles Bodunde of University of Ilorin, and Dr. Rainat Mohammed of University of Maiduguri.

Members of the Advisory Board for the Prize are Professor Emeritus Ayo Banjo, Professor Ben Elugbe and Professor Jerry Agada. Kimberly Reynolds, a Professor of Children’s Literature at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, and past President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature, is this year’s International Consultant to the Advisory Board.

Submissions are examined and shortlisted based on a number of considerations including editorial excellence, creativity and story plot, with the aim of selecting a final winner who will then be publicly announced in October each year, to coincide with the date NLNG shipped its first liquefied natural gas cargo.

“We have received a hundred and nine books as submissions by Nigerian authors to compete for this year’s prize in children’s literature. I can only wish all the authors vying for the honour every success and the best outcome possible in the exercise,” said Kudo Eresia-Eke, NLNG’s General Manager, External Relations.

The last winner of the literature prize in the children’s literature category was Adeleke Adeyemi in 2011, for The Missing Clock, while Mabel Segun and Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo were joint winners for the Reader’s Theatre and My Cousin Sammy in 2007.

This year’s award for children’s literature will run concurrently with the prize for literary criticism, also sponsored by NLNG, and for which only one entry was received. Introduced in 2012, the literary criticism category is a yearly award and carries a monetary value of N1 million.

Elsewhere in education, Nigeria LNG in March 2014 publicly announced a N2 billion University Support Programme (USP). Under the corporate social responsibility initiative, Nigeria LNG is currently sponsoring the building and equipment of engineering laboratories in six universities across Nigeria’s six geo-political zones as part of its support to teaching, research and capacity building.