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The Nigeria Prize Writers Read Excerpts from their Work

The announcement of the winner of the 2017 Nigeria Prize for Literature is very near now. In three short days, the wait will be over and a new winner will be crowned for this year’s Poetry Prize. Last year’s Prize was for Prose Fiction and was won by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The prize is worth $100,000.

Winners for the 2017 Prize for Literary Criticism will also be announced on Monday, October 9, 2017.

The writers on this year’s shortlist for the Poetry Prize are Tanure Ojaide (Songs of Myself), Ogaga Ifowodo (A Good Mourning) and Ikeogu Oke (The Heresiad). Since the beginning of this week, I have spoken with each of the writers and posted the interviews here.

Today I want to share videos of the writers reading from their work. For anyone interested in any of the books, you can get them on OkadaBooks.com, Nigeria’s online and mobile bookstore.

Here is Tanure Ojaide reading from his book Songs of Myself.

Here is Ogaga Ifowodo reading from his book A Good Mourning.

Here is Ikeogu Oke reading from his work The Heresiad.

May the best writer win!

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On Sunday, October 8, 2017, do come back to watch the last interview, with Dr. Kudo Eresia-Eke who is the General Manager External Relations of the NLNG, on the future of the Nigeria Prize.

The Nigeria Prize Writers Read Excerpts from their Work was published on October 6th, 2017, with the tags , , , , , , , , , under the Literature, Poetry, Poetry category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

“Things Fell Into Place Almost Miraculously” | Interview with Ikeogu Oke (video)

I have been enthralled by Ikeogu Oke’s book of what he terms “operatic poetry” since I first encountered it (review here). There was something about the work that speaks to joyful experimentation, hard work, resilience (it was started in 1989) and a grand ambition. It is the only collection on the shortlist that is just one poem spread over hundreds of pages. It combines elements of fable with drama, poetry, and music.

In this interview, regrettably the shortest of the three because of time constraints on the day of recording, I talk to him about the work, about his craft in general, and his aspirations for the work going forward.

Enjoy.

This concludes the writer interview series. Previous interviews can be found here.

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Update: October 9, 2017: Ikeogu Oke’s The Heresiad is the 2017 Nigeria Prize for Literature winner. Read the review of his work here. Congrats to him.

“Things Fell Into Place Almost Miraculously” | Interview with Ikeogu Oke (video) was published on October 5th, 2017, with the tags , , , , under the Interview, Literature, Poetry category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

“Every New Environment Has Its Own Inspiration” | Interview with Tanure Ojaide (video)

Professor Tanure Ojaide, author of Songs of Myself (review here) is an accomplished and prolific writer with 20 collections of poetry and countless awards to his name. He has been at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) since July 1990 where he is the Frank Porter Graham Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies, but he has lived in Ilorin, Kwara State, now for a couple of years – a fact I didn’t know until I got to speak to him for this series.

In this conversation, I ask him about a number of things including the transition from living, working, and publishing around the world to settling back into the Nigerian environment in a deliberate attempt to capture a new home audience. I was also very interested in his use of Urhobo language and poetic style in his work.

The interview was the longest of the three writers, but it has been edited here for brevity.


Read the previous reviews, and watch previous interviews, here.

 

“Every New Environment Has Its Own Inspiration” | Interview with Tanure Ojaide (video) was published on October 4th, 2017, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Interview, Literature, Poetry category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

“No Serious Writer I Know Writes for a Prize” | Interview with Ogaga Ifowodo (video)

In this conversation with poet and James Baldwin lookalike Ogaga Ifowodo, I try to get at his purpose for writing a book about the June 12 crises, and what exactly he means by “the intimacy of evil”. His collection, A Good Mourning (Paressia, 2016) is an engaging work of competence and style (review here).

I also wanted to know why now since the June 12 crises has faded to the background of Nigeria’s socio-political memory. What did he think of the role of a writer in society, and what is the limit of writing in effecting change.

Watch the conversation below.

Read the previous reviews, and watch previous interviews, here.

“No Serious Writer I Know Writes for a Prize” | Interview with Ogaga Ifowodo (video) was published on October 3rd, 2017, with the tags , , , , , , under the Interview, Literature, Poetry category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Interview With Professor Ben Elugbe (video)

Professor Ben Elugbe is on the Advisory Board of the NLNG-sponsored Nigeria Prize for Literature and has been for many years.

He is a Professor of Linguistics and a former Head of Department of the Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ìbàdàn where I was once a student. He taught me phonology. He is one of the most important authorities in African linguistics. (I co-edited a book of language essays on his honour in 2011). He is also a former President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and President of the West-African Linguistic Society (2004-2013).

In this interview, I interrogate him about the Nigeria Prize, his role as a member of the advisory board, his opinion on the prize itself and the entries this year. I also ask him about the controversy surrounding this year’s longlist and shortlist, particularly of the accusation that one of the judges ran a publishing house in which one of the longlisted books was published. He had some interesting responses.

Watch his response and the full interview below.


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This is the continuation of a series of interviews about the 2017 Nigeria Prize for Literature. Read more about it here, and read a review of each of the books on the shortlist (as well as the schedule of the release of future interviews) here. The prizewinner will be announced on October 9, 2017.

Interview With Professor Ben Elugbe (video) was published on October 2nd, 2017, with the tags , , , , , , under the Interview, Linguistics, Literature, Poetry category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.