2014 Prof. Wole Soyinka Prize For Literature Entry Opens

Professor Wole Soyinka

The board of trustees for the biennial Wole Soyinka Prize For Literature In Africa has called for entries for the 2014 edition of the Literature Award. At a press briefing heralding the entry submission in Lagos, the Chairman of The Lumina Foundation and Board of the Wole Soyinka Prize

Trustees, Mrs. Francesca Yetunde 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.

"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 play published between 2012 and 2013) is eligible for the 2014 WS Prize," Emanuel said.

The organizers noted that in the past, entries were invited in all the genres because Prof. Soyinka writes in all the genres. However, based on the judges' recommendation, the Board of Trustees has approved that in the future, each edition should assess only one of the genres (Prose, poetry, Drama and Essays).

And since the fifth edition will be coinciding with Soyinka's 80th birthday, drama as a literary genre for which Soyinka is well known, will take precedence, the board decided.

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 passes by.

"In the first edition of the Prize, we had 87 entries from eight African countries. This grew to 204 entries from ten African countries in the second edition, and by the third edition we had 336 entries from eleven African countries. In the fourth edition, we had 402 entries from 26 African countries. Thus far, four awards of the prize have been made, 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 seasoned intellectuals and critics taken from five African countries which include, Cote D Ivore, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and South Sudan. An overall winner of the award goes home with a princely sum of $20,000USD