Wole Soyinka Prize For Literature launches call for entries

The organisers of the fifth edition  of Wole Soyinka Prize For Literature In Africa have called for entries for the 2014 edition of the Literature Award.

The Chairman of The Lumina Foundation and award’s Board of Trustees, Mrs. Francesca Yetunde Emanuel, said this at a press briefing in Lagos over the weekend.

“On behalf of the board of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, I hereby announce the commencement of the preparation for the 5th edition of the prize, which will take place here in Nigeria on Saturday July 5, 2014 and also call for entries. Any published play or collection of plays by the same author of African descent, published within the two years preceding the year  of the Prize (that is a play published between 2012 and 2013) is eligible for the 2014 WS Prize,” Emanuel said.“The 2014 edition will be the 5th edition of the award and will be coinciding with the 80th birthday of Prof. Wole Soyinka, whom the prize is named after.”

However, based on the judges’ recommendation, the Board of Trustees has approved that starting with the fifth edition, each edition should assess only one of the genres (Prose, poetry, Drama and Essays) unlike in the past that had entries in all genres.

The founding chairman of the Lumina Foundation and a member of the board, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, said the growth of the WS Prize is not only in quality, but also in scope and scale as it has continued to attract interest from many African countries as the years pass by.

“Four awards of the prize have been made in the previous editions  with Nigeria winning in the first and second editions, and tying with South Africa in the third while a South African took home the fourth prize,” Ogunbiyi said.

The Judges of the Prize are intellectuals and critics taken from five African countries: Cote D Ivoire, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and South Sudan. The overall winner of the award goes home with the sum of 20,000 US dollars.