Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa

$20,000 prize: Ezeigbo confronts South African leopards

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012 BY AKEEM LASISI LEAVE A COMMENT

Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo
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Other things being equal, another African writer will be $20,000 richer on Saturday. That is some good cash – over N3m. It is the prize money of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa whose grand finale will hold in Lagos tomorrow. The prize was founded by Promise Okekwe’s the Lumina Foundation.

In the race this time is scholar writer,  Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo,  chasing her about 10th literary crest, having established herself as one of Nigeria’s most decorated  writers. With her civil war novel, Roses and Bullets, she is competing with two South African writers – Bridget Pitt, author of The Unseen Leopard,and Sifiso Mzobe, with his novel, Young Blood.

Interestingly, the final stage of the 2012 edition of the competition has re-enacted the soft and inspiring rivalry between literary attainments in Nigeria and the Mandiba country. At various competitions that include Caine Prize, writers from both countries have had to slug it out, with victory eventually going either way. But while it is a healthy rivalry that has aided the development of African literature, the short list of the Soyinka Prize also depicts that it is, in a way, a battle between a male and two female writers – a kind of gender duel. And the title of Mzobe’s book – The Young Blood – also appears to be crying loud that he is a young writer in the midst of two Amazons. But his profile also shows that anything can happen on Saturday: He is the winner of the Sunday Times Literary Award 2011.

Mzobe was born in Umlazi Township, Durban, where he also went to school. After attending St Francis College, he studied Journalism at Damelin Business Campus in Durban. He currently works for a community newspaper in Durban as a journalist.

Adimora-Ezeigbo has taught in the English Department at the University of Lagos for more than three decades. A multiple award-winning scholar and writer, she received the first Best Researcher Award in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Lagos in 2005.

Her prizes include The Cadbury/ANA Poetry Prize (2009); ANA/Atiku Abubakar Children Literature Prize (2008); The Nigeria Prize for Literature (2007 – shared with Mabel Segun) ANA/NDDC Flora Nwapa Prize (2003); Zulu Sofola Prize (2002); Spectrum Prize (2001) and WORDOC Short Story Prize.

Pitt is a Zimbabwe-born South African writer. Her fist published writing was for a newspaper called Grassroots,which was used by Cape Town black communities as an organising tool in the anti-apartheid struggles during the 1980’s. She also produced media for a number of organisations and ran workshops in media skills. She later moved onto writing educational material for NGO’s, school textbooks, poetry and fiction. She has published poetry in The Thinker magazine, short stories, and two adult novels – Unbroken Wing and The Unseen Leopard,  shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2011.

The winner will be announced at the event holding at The Civic Centre, Victoria Island – where Lagbaja and Adunni Nefretiti will perform.