Etisalat literature prize: An all-female affair A novel by South Africa-based Nigerian author Yewande Omotosho, Bomboy, is among the three works shortlisted by judges of the Etisalat Prize for Literature. If she wins it, she is due to get £15,000 – among other rewards. But the daughter of renowned scholar and writer, Prof. Kole Omotoso, has to do ‘battle’ with two other writers, Karen Jennings and NoViolet Bulawayo, whose works Finding Soutbek and We Need New Names, respectively, are also on the short list. According to the organisers, the short list was decided after a retreat in Morocco where the judges met to discuss the nine long-listed books. The Chair of the Judges, Pumla Gqola, is quoted as saying, “We discussed each of the books on the long list in quite some detail, although considerably more time was dedicated to those books that were ranked differently by the judges. We are quite pleased to have reached yet another important milestone in the young life of the Prize.” Yewande was born in Barbados in 1980 and grew up in Nigeria with her Barbadian mother, Nigerian father and two older brothers. The family moved to South Africa in 1992. According to one of her profiles online, she trained as an architect at the University of Cape Town, to which she returned after working for several years, to complete a Master’s degree in Creative Writing. The product of her degree is her debut novel, Bomboy, which was published in 2011 by Modjaji Books. Bomboy was shortlisted for the 2012 Sunday Times Literary Awards as well as the MNet Film Award. Also, it won the South African Literary Award in the First Time Author category. Prior to Bomboy, Yewande authored several stories, among them The Piano (2nd Place, People Opposing Women Abuse, 2005) and Maude Hastings (Honourable Mention, John La Rose Short Story Competition, 2007). On the other hand, Bulawayo was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She attended Njube High School and later, Mzilikazi High School for her A levels. Online accounts indicate that she completed her college education in the United States, studying at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and earning Bachelor and Master’s degrees in English from Texas A&M University-Commerce and Southern Methodist University, respectively. We Need New Names was released in 2013 and was included in the 2013 Man Booker Prize shortlist. This made her the first black African woman and the first Zimbabwean to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She is the winner of the 2010 Truman Capote Fellowship, 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for the short story Hitting Budapest about a gang of street children in a Zimbabwean shantytown and 2013 Man Booker Prize. Born in Cape Town in 1982, Jennings holds a Master’s degree in both English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. In 2010 her short story From Dark won the Africa Region prize in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Mia and the Shark won the English section of the Maskew Miller Longman short story competition in 2009 and is now studied in schools. Finding Soutbek is her first novel. January 27, 2014 at 10:35PM
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:40:04 +0000