Finalists named for African poetry prize

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Finalists named for African poetry prize

The African Poetry Book Fund, in partnership Prairie Schooner, UNL’s literary journal, has named three finalists for the inaugural Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

They are “Irki” by Kadija Sesay (Peepal Tree Press, 2013), “Left Over” by Kobus Moolman (Dye Hard Press, 2013), and “through the window of a sandcastle” by Amu Nnadi (Origami Books/Parresia Publishers Ltd).

The author of the prize-winning book will be announced Dec. 1 and will receive $5,000.

This pan-African poetry prize, funded by literary philanthropist and poet Glenna Luschei is the only one of its kind in the world. Established to promote African poetry written in English or in translation, it recognizes a significant book published each year by an African poet. Each year, an internationally renowned poet judges the prize. This year’s judge was Nigerian poet and novelist Chris Abani.

This year’s finalists come from different presses and represent different African countries.

Peepal Tree Press is an independent publisher located in the United Kingdom committed to publishing Caribbean, Black British and South Asian titles. Dye Hard Press is a small publisher in Johannesburg, South Africa, that has published more than 20 titles since 1994. Origami Books is a division of Parresia Publishers, based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Sesay is a literary activist of Sierra Leonean descent who has edited several important anthologies, including “Write Black, Write British” (2005). She is also series editor and co-director of Inscribe, an imprint and writer development program housed by Peepal Tree Press; and fiction editor for Amalion Publishing in Senegal. Recipient of an El Gouna Writers Residency (2011), her numerous awards include a Kennedy Fellow in Performance Arts Management (2001-02) and the STARS of Sierra Leone Award for women of outstanding achievement (2006).

Moolman is a South African poet working as an academic in English studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. In addition to “Left Over,” he has published five individual collections of poetry and two collections of plays, as well as editing the journal Fidelities from 1995 until 2007 and the anthology “Tilling the Hard Soil” (UKZN Press, 2010). Moolman has received several awards, including the Ingrid Jonker Prize, the South African Literary Award for poetry and the BBC African Theatre Award.

Nnadi is a Nigerian poet and the author of two collections of poems in addition to “through the window of a sandcastle.” The first, “the fire within,” won the 2002 ANA Gabriel Okara Prize for Poetry. A later collection, “pilgrim’s passage,” was shortlisted for the 2005 Nigeria Prize for Literature and “through the window of a sandcastle” won the 2013 ANA Poetry Prize and was runner-up for the 2013 Nigeria Prize for Literature.

For more information on the finalists, the prize, and the African Poetry Book Fund, go to http://http://africanpoetrybf.unl.edu.

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