Winners of the 2023 SEVHAGE Literary Prizes

by | Jan 7, 2024 | Gist Corner

On Dec 31, SEVHAGE Prizes wrapped up the year by announcing the winners of their literary prizes. The overall winner of each category will be awarded 100,000 naira and a complimentary certificate; runners-up will be awarded 5000 naira and complimentary certificates too.

Below are the winners for each category.

E.E SULE/SEVHAGE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN CRITICISM

Winner: Arasi Kamolideen Oluwapemi for “A Principle for the New Nigerian Poetry”. Arasi’s entry is regarded as “stunning” in its redirection of “reason to the rising trend of decoloniality that professes, in peculiarity, the sacredness of literary freshness and ownership of the new Nigerian literature.”

Runners-up:

  • Gender as Performance, and Androgynous Space Creation in African Literature: Reading Dibia’s Walking with Shadows and Duiker’s The Quiet Violence by Eugene Shichet Yakubu
  • The Cartography of Human Behavior: Vernacular Theatre in Eastern Africa by Alex Nderitu
  • Negotiating Spaces in Western Metropolitan Societies: Focus on Contemporary Nigerian Diasporic Novels by Bizuum Godwill YadokWomen and the Boko Haram Terrorists: Reading Trauma in Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Abidemi Emman Oguntunji
  • Unravelling Familial Ties in The Representations of Wives in Selected Women Authored Zambian Short Stories by Shilika Chisoko

SEVHAGE/LETICIA NYITSE PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION

 Joint Winners: Amanda Ilozumba for “The Girl Whose Family Drowned in Her Name” and Ola W. Halim for “On Most Saturdays, It Doesn’t Rain”. The pieces are praised as “worthy pieces that anyone will be proud of.”

Runners-up:

  • Dial M for Murder by Hajara Hussaina Ashara
    • How Lagos Wrings You Dry by Prosper C. Ifeanyi
    • Let This Be the Noose That Unties Me by Enit’ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya

SEVHAGE-MARIA AJIMA PRIZE FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Winner: Abasi-maenyin Esebre for “Grief: Its Invisible Gerund” His entry is commended as “heartfelt and “the markings of a fine craftsperson.”

Runners-up:

  • Boy, What is the Taste of a Glory that Burns by Mhembeuter Jeremiah Orhemba
  • No Tongue of My Own by Mwanabibi Sylvia Sikamo
  • It Tastes Like Love by Olajesutofunmi Akinyemi
  • Butterflies, Fireflies, & Brotherhood by Hope Joseph
  • The Five Stages of Grief is Death by Ejiro Elizabeth Edward
  • A Mother Figure by Hajaarh Muhammad Bashar

SEVHAGE-KSR Hyginus Ekwuazi Poetry Prize

Winner: Sodiq Oyekanmi for ‘glossolalia’.

Runners-up:

  • Riverscape with Seine by Martins Deep
  • Self-Innoculation//&the Falsettos of Soft Bruises by Joshua Effiong
  • Why This Poet is Addicted to Heartbreak Songs by Damilola Omotoyinbo
  • Here, I Introduced Kotus to the Encyclopedia of My Dolour by Abduljalal Musa Aliyu
  • Ujana by Frank Njugi

Call for entries for the SEVHAGE Prizes will be made in the first quarter of 2024. Congratulations to our own: Mhembeuter Jeremiah Orhemba and Eugene Yakubu.