Nigerian Writer Wins The James Currey Prize For African Literature 2021 — Pawners Paper

Following the conclusion of the submission for the literary prize, James Currey Prize For African American Literature, Ani Kayode, a Nigerian writer w

Nigerian Writer, Ani Kayode Wins The James Currey Prize For African Literature 2021

Following the conclusion of the submission for the literary prize, James Currey Prize For African Literature, Ani Kayode, a Nigerian writer was announced by the judges as the winner of the prize in a hosted virtual event.

 Ani Kayode won the inaugural literary prize with his manuscript titled "And Then He Sang a Lullaby" and was described by the judges as “breathtaking.” The award comes with a cash prize of £1,000.

Tht event was chaired by Inyal Lawal and other judges who also showed praises to other shortlisted writers coming from Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Nigeria and their respective works. The names of the writers are underlisted:

1. Nigerian author, Okwudiri Job for "The Masses on Ashes"; 
2. The South African author, Stephen Embleton for Bones and Runes;
3.  The Ghanaian author, Solomon Kobina Aremu for The Rage of the Lambs; and
4.  The Zimbabwean author, Ntando Gerald for A Reign of Terror.

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The winner, Ani Kayode Somtochukwu is a biologist, writer, and Queer Liberation Activist who lives in Enugu, Nigeria. His work interrogates themes of queer identity, resistance and liberation and has appeared in The Enkare Review, The Rustin Times, Gertrude, Bakwa, and PlenitudeMagazine, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Erbacce poetry prize, the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award, and the Toyin Falola Prize. He is the host of Rainbow Marxism, a YouTube channel that focuses on queer liberation in Africa, and the founder of the Queer Union for Economic and SocialTransformation(QUEST), a radical queer group organizing towards queer liberation in Nigeria. He was a finalist for the 2020 Prize for Difference andDiversity and was the recipient of the SOGIESC Rights Activist of the year award (2019) presented by the Initiative for Equal Rights(TIERs).

The founder of the James Currey Prize For African Literature 2031, Onyeka  Nwelu, have an address at the award ceremony, thereby emphasizing on the contribution of James Currey to African literature. He also shares the purpose of the literary prize, stating:

The pivot for the James Currey Prize for African Literature, that we instituted in 2020, for the first unpublished full-length work of fiction, intends to perpetuate the value of the African Writers Series and other such initiatives in contemporary African literature exposure, and distribution. The task at hand is one that we hope to realize through our UK and US based, Abibiman Publishing: there are wider audiences to serve, more African voices, and voices concerned with Africa, to hear, more unpublished materials to hereafter spread, especially for, and within, the African continent.

James Currey Prize for African Literature is indeed a welcome development in the African literary scene. Congratulations to Ani Kayode Somtochukwu!

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