The Nigeria Prize for Literature, which comes with a cash prize of US$100,000, is sponsored by the oil firm NLNG. It’s given annually in the categories of drama, poetry, fictional prose, children literature. This year’s prize is for fiction. Previous winners include Chika Unigwe, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Jude Idala, Soji Cole, Ikeogu Oke, Sam Ukala, and Tade Ipadeola.
Here are the three finalists drawn from a longlist of eleven writers:
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia for The Son of the House
Obinna Udenwa for The Colours of Hatred
Abi Daré’s for The Girl With the Louding Voice
The judges said the three novels “tell human and indeed universal stories of rural as against urban life, suffering and survival, loss and redemption, decline and renaissance, destruction and reconstruction, and death and rebirth.”
This year’s panel, which is being chaired by Prof. Toyin Jegede, includes Prof. Tanimu Abubakar of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Dr Solomon Azumurana of Department of English at the University of Lagos.
During a virtual press conference, the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Prize, Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, announced Zimbabwean novelist, Tsitsi Dangarembga, as the International Consultant for this year’s prize.
The winner will be announced in October.
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