Bibi Bakare-Yusuf
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf Hon. FRSL (born 1970) is a Nigerian academic, writer and editor from Lagos, Nigeria. She co-founder the publishing company Cassava Republic Press in 2006, in Abuja with Jeremy Weate. Cassava Republic Press was created with a focus on affordability, the need to find and develop local talent, and to publish African writers too often celebrated only in Europe and America. Bakare-Yusuf was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019, as well as having been selected as a Yale World Fellow, a Desmond Tutu Fellow and a Frankfurt Book Fair Fellow. Early life and education Bibi Bakare-Yusuf was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but moved to England when she was 13 years old. She attended Goldsmith College, University of London, where she studied Communication and Anthropology, and gained a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Warwick. Career and creation of Cassava Republic Press In 2006, Bakare-Yusuf — who at the time was an academic in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fellow Of The Royal Society Of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House. History The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) was founded in 1820, with the patronage of George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent", and its first president was Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St David's (who was later translated as Bishop of Salisbury). At the heart of the RSL is its Fellowship, "which encompasses the most distinguished writers working today", with the RSL Council, Chair and President, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Caine Prize
The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. The £10,000 prize was founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, and was named in memory of Sir Michael Harris Caine, former Chairman of Booker Group plc. Because of the Caine Prize's connection to the Booker Prize, the award is sometimes called the "African Booker". The prize is known as the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. The Chair of the Board is Ellah Wakatama. History It was first awarded in 2000 to the Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela for her short story "The Museum", at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Harare. In its first year the Prize attracted entries from 20 African countries. The winner is announced at a dinner in July, formerly held in Oxford but most recently at SOAS, University of London, to which the shortlisted candidates are all invited. This is part of a week of act ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Collins (musician/researcher)
John Collins (born 1944) is a UK-born guitarist, harmonica player and percussionist who first went to Ghana as a child in 1952 for a brief period and later became involved in the West African music scene after returning to Ghana in 1969."John Collins: Ghana, Then and Now (Part 1)" , interview by Banning Eyre, Afropop. He is a naturalised Ghanaian. Biography Collins originally accompanied his parents to Ghana in 1952, when his father was setting up the philosophy department at the . Returning to Britain with his mother, on her divorce from his father, Collins was educated in[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christie Watson
Christie Watson (born 1976) is a British writer and retired nurse. Her first novel, ''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'', won the Costa First Novel Award in the 2011 Costa Book Awards. Her second novel ''Where Women Are Kings'' also won critical praise. Early life and education Born in Stevenage, she left school at the age of 16 and after volunteering for a year at Scope (then the Spastics Society) went into nursing. She trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital."Christie Watson — About the Author" Foyles.Nina Lakhani '' [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (born 1979) is a Nigerian writer and journalist. He was described by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle as a northern Nigerian "literary provocateur" amidst the international acclaim his award-winning novel ''Season of Crimson Blossoms'' received in 2016. Career Abubakar Adam Ibrahim was born in Jos, North-Central Nigeria, and holds a BA degree in Mass Communication from the University of Jos. His debut short-story collection ''The Whispering Trees'' was longlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014, with the title story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. The collection was re-published by Cassava Republic Press for international distribution in 2020 and a French translation will be published in 2022. In 2014 he was selected for the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature, and was included in the anthology ''Africa39: New Writing from Africa S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chigozie Obioma
Chigozie Obioma (born 1986) is a Nigerian writer. He is best known for writing the novels ''The Fishermen'' (2015) and ''An Orchestra of Minorities'' (2019), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in their respective years of publication. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages. , Obioma is James E. Ryan Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Early life and influences Of Igbo descent, Obioma was born in 1986 into a family of 12 children — seven brothers and four sisters – in Akure, in the south-western part of Nigeria, where he grew up speaking Yoruba, Igbo, and English. As a child, he was fascinated by Greek myths and British writers, including Shakespeare, John Milton, and John Bunyan. Among African writers, he developed a strong affinity for Wole Soyinka's ''The Trials of Brother Jero''; Cyprian Ekwensi's ''An African Night's Entertainment''; Camara Laye's ''The African Child''; and D. O. Fagunwa's '' Ã’gbà ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ
MÅ©koma wa NgÅ©gÄ© (born 1971) is a Kenyan American poet, author, and academic. He is associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University and co-founder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Writing. His father is the author NgÅ©gÄ© wa Thiong'o. His family was deeply impacted by the bloody British suppression of the Mau Mau revolution. Biography MÅ©koma was born in 1971 in Evanston, Illinois, US, but raised in Kenya, before returning to the United States for his university education. He holds a BA in political science from Albright College and an MA in creative writing from Boston University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he specialized in how questions of authorized and unauthorized English, or standard and non-standard English, influenced literary aesthetics in Romantic Britain and Independence-Era Africa. He is an associate professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of several books, inclu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Adaobi Tricia Obinne Nwaubani is a Nigerian novelist, humorist, essayist and journalist, who was born in 1976. Her debut novel, ''I Do Not Come To You By Chance'', won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa), a Betty Trask First Book award, and was named by ''The Washington Post'' as one of the Best Books of 2009. Her debut Young Adult novel, ''Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree'', based on interviews with girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, was published by HarperCollins in September 2018. It won the 2018 Raven Award for Excellence in Arts and Entertainment, was named as one of the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, and is a Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2019 selection. Biography Nwaubani was born in Enugu, Nigeria, to Chief Chukwuma Hope Nwaubani and Dame Patricia Uberife Nwaubani on 1 January 1976.Nwaubani was raised by both parents in her hometown Umuahia, Abia State, among the Igbo people. Her family ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elnathan John
Elnathan John (born 1982) is a Nigerian novelist, satirist and lawyer whose stories have twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Career Elnathan John was born in Kaduna, in north-west Nigeria, in 1982. He attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the Nigerian Law School, where he obtained law degrees. His short story ''Bayan Layi'', published in ''Per Contra'', was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013. He was shortlisted again for the Caine Prize in 2015 for his short story ''Flying''. His writing has been published in ''The Economist'', ''The Guardian'', ''Per Contra'', '' Hazlitt'', ''ZAM Magazine'', '' Evergreen Review'', and '' Chimurenga's The Chronic''. John's first novel, ''Born on a Tuesday'' was published in 2016 by Cassava Republic Press in 2015 and in the US by Grove Atlantic. ''Born on a Tuesday'' was shortlisted in September 2016 for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa's largest literary award it won a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Helon Habila
Helon Habila Ngalabak (born November 1967) is a Nigerian novelist and poet, whose writing has won many prizes, including the Caine Prize in 2001. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before moving in 2002 to England, where he was a Chevening Scholar at the University of East Anglia, and now teaches creative writing at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Background Helon Habila was born in Kaltungo, Gombe State, Nigeria. He studied English Language and Literature at the University of Jos and lectured for three years at the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi. In 1999 he went to Lagos to write for ''Hints'' magazine, moving to ''Vanguard'' newspaper as Literary Editor.Biography Helon Habila website. Habila won the Music Society of Nigeria (MUSON) national poetry award for his poem "Another Age" in 2000, the same year his short story collectio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Teju Cole
Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella ''Every Day Is for the Thief'' (2007), a novel ''Open City'' (2011), an essay collection ''Known and Strange Things'' (2016), and a photobook ''Punto d'Ombra'' (2016; published in English in 2017 as ''Blind Spot''). Critics have praised his work as having "opened a new path in African literature." Personal life and education Cole was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Nigerian parents, and is the oldest of four children. Cole and his mother returned to Lagos, Nigeria, shortly after his birth, where his father joined them after receiving his MBA from Western Michigan University. Cole moved back to the United States at the age of 17 to attend Western Michigan University for one year, then transferred to Kalamazoo College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1996. After dropping out of medical school at the University of Michigan, Cole enrolled in an Africa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lola Shoneyin
Lola Shoneyin (born Titilola Atinuke Alexandrah Shoneyin; 26 February 1974 in Ibadan, Nigeria) is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, ''The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives'', in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet (often classed in the feminist mould), having published three volumes of poetry. Her writing delves into themes related to female sexuality and the difficulties of domestic life in Africa.In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Lola won the PEN Award in America as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa Award for prose in Nigeria. She was also on the list for the Orange Prize in the UK for her debut novel, ''The Secret of Baba Segi's Wives'', in 2010. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she runs the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival. In 2017, she was named Africa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |