The 13th CORA-The Nigeria Prize for Literature Book Party for writers longlisted for the 2022 edition of the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature (NLP), will take place at the Shell Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos Sunday 7 August by 2 pm.
The organiers say the event will also accommodate virtual guests via Zoom; and will be broadcast live on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
The literature prize, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) with a cash award of $100,000, has been a literary tradition since 2004 rotating annually across four genres namely drama, poetry, prose and children’s literature.
The party, a literary feast of Ideas and Life, celebrates the authors and their works for emerging as some of the very best in the country. It is an afternoon of literary feasting, featuring performances, wining and dining.
The 11 books on the Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist are Coming Undone As Stitches Tighten by Iquo DianaAbasi, Dispossessed by James Eze, Augusta’s Poodle by Ogaga Ifowodo, Ife Testament by Olusegun Adekoya, Memory and the Call of Waters by S. Su’eddie Agema, Nomad by Romeo Oriogun, The Lilt of The Rebel by Obari Gomba, The Love Canticles by Chijioke Amu Nnadi, Wanderer Cantos by Remi Raji, Yawns and Belches by Joe Ushie and Your Crib, My Qibla by Saddiq Dzukogi.
The Nigerian Prize for Literature was inaugurated in 2004 and sponsored by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited with a cash prize of first $20,000; later, $50,000 and now; $100,000, which is the biggest of its kind in Africa.
The CORA-The Nigeria Prize for Literature Book party, a special iteration of the CORA Book Party launched in 1996 — was initiated after a review of the first five years of the esteemed Prize project. The idea is to create a platform through which the public get to engage with the works considered the best of the usually over 200 entries per edition of the NPL.
CORA is a group of artistes, art enthusiasts, art promoters and art writers committed to the flowering of all the contemporary arts of the peoples that make up Nigeria. It has organised, every year since 1999, the Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF, critically described as “the biggest Culture picnic on the African continent.” The 23rd edition holds November 14-20 on the theme: PATHWAYS TO THE FUTURE.