Burt Award for African Literature

This blog is dedicated to supporting African Literature. As a result I try to bring to my readers anything related to promoting Literature and reading in Africa. Hence, as I was reading through Wednesday 23rd September 2009 edition of the Daily Graphic, the largest selling newspaper in Ghana, I came across an advert which I think should be posted on this blog and should be encouraged.

BURT AWARD FOR AFRICAN LITERATURE: CODE and the Ghana Book Trust have the pleasure to invite Ghanaian authors to take part in a writing competition to produce engaging and educational stories for the youth (12-15 years old) that will be published through the Burt Award.

The Burt Award for African Literature is a newly created award programme that honours and supports the writing and publication of excellent young adult literature and for Africans. The Programme recognises outstanding authors and ensures publication of their work by local publishers.

The award is sponsored by CODE, a Canadian NGO, with generous support from Canadian patron Bill Burt. The award is restricted to authors who are citizens and resident in Ghana:

Prizes:
  • 1st Gold: GHC 16,000
  • 2nd Silver: GHC 8,000
  • 3rd Bronze: GHC 4,000
Requirements:
  1. The story should be original and written in English;
  2. Demonstrate a solid command of the English language, a clear, cohesive language and proper sentence structure, vocabulary and punctuation;
  3. Reflect modern realities and indicate some of the social problems which are facing adolescents and young adults in Ghana today;
  4. Be of strong literary merit, including engaging characters with whom young readers can identify and a protagonist who overcomes challenges or obstacles in a positive way;
  5. Be a well-developed plot with a good flow of events and pacing;
  6. Having an excellent story telling style;
  7. Deploy dialogue to make it lively and allow for dramatisation;
  8. Have the potential to evolve into a book series. A sequel would be welcome.
The manuscript should be between 80-120 pages and should be in chapter form. It should be type-written, double spaced. Times New Roman font size 12. The manuscript should be electronically sent to gbt@africaoline.com by 31st May, 2010 by 4.00 pm. See the Tanzania Burt Awards here...

Source: Daily Graphic, Wednesday September 23, 2009. No.18028.


PS: Read the winner here

Comments

  1. Pen Powder23 September 2009 at 15:05

    You can bet, If I was Ghanaian, I would have given this a hand...

    ReplyDelete
  2. ImageNations23 September 2009 at 15:07

    Hahahaha...hope Ghanaians participate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Edward of PathGhana23 September 2009 at 19:35

    @ PenPowder|| Dont forget you also need to be between the ages of 12 and 15!! lol. too bad . I wished I could reverse the hands of time

    ReplyDelete
  4. ImageNations24 September 2009 at 00:20

    @Edward: I don't think so. The story is targeting individuals between 12 and 15 but the participants or prospective authors could be older. Check the Tanzanian winners...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rethabile24 September 2009 at 12:05

    Cool,
    I'll link to this in a post.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Esi Cleland Yankson24 September 2009 at 12:16

    Nice! Will give it a shot. Another reason being a Ghanaian writer in Ghana rocks BIG TIME!

    ReplyDelete
  7. ImageNations24 September 2009 at 12:59

    @Rethabile...thanks. I hope with this we would spread the information.

    ReplyDelete
  8. ImageNations24 September 2009 at 13:00

    @EWC: Give it a try and you might be the winner. Who knows?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Help Improve the Blog with a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10. Unexpected Joy at Dawn: My Reading

Image
Title: Unexpected Joy At Dawn Author: Alex Agyei-Agyiri Genre: Novel Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers Pages: 331 Year: 2004 Country: Ghana Unexpected Joy at Dawn is a story of two siblings, Nii and Mama Orojo, during the 1983 deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria under the Shehu Shagari government. Nii, who is a Nigerian by blood but a Ghanaian by birth, was left in Ghana by his parents as they made the tortuous journey to Nigeria when Ghana enacted the Aliens Compliance Order of 1969, which made every person living in Ghana without the required papers an alien. His name was changed to reflect the name of his adopted parents. After fourteen years of living in hardship in Ghana, which involves living in slums even though he was an Assistant Manager at a bank, taking on multiple jobs, not being able to bury a wife and being chased around by market women for purported 'fraud', he decided to go to Nigeria in search of his roots. Besides, he entertained the fears of being
Read more

69. The Clothes of Nakedness by Benjamin Kwakye, A Review

Image
Title: The Clothes of Nakedness Author: Benjamin Kwakye Publishers: Heinemann African Writers Series Genre: Fiction/Novel/Class Pages: 212 Year of First Publication: 1998 Country: Ghana For the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners Reading Challenge Benjamin Kwakye 's novel The Clothes of Nakedness  is a compelling narrative directed at a Ghanaian audience, in particular. It reveals the economic hardships existing in our society; it also reveals the intricately woven relationships between the rich and the poor and how the 'seemingly' rich manipulate the poor to further that wealth-dom in this dual economic society where absolute riches exist side by side with abject poverty. The latter scenario is even more stark and pathetic if one knows that Nima and Kanda Estates, two neighbourhoods presented in the story, are real and not just fictional representation made concrete by Kwakye's brilliant mind. The story revolves around thr
Read more

42. The Blinkards by Kobina Sekyi

Image
Title: The Blinkards, A Comedy and The Anglo-Fanti - A Short Story Author: Kobina Sekyi Genre: Play/Short Story Pages: 256 Publishers: Heinemann/Readwide ISBN: 978-0-435-92784-4 Year of Publication: 1974 (this edition, 1997) Country: Gold Coast (Now Ghana) Setting:  This book contains two stories: The Blinkards - a play and The Anglo-Fanti - a short story . Though the stories are from two different genres, one theme threads through them: the effect of absolute cultural osmosis or better still the consequences of swallowing an alien culture without much scrutiny, as happened in occupied countries popularly referred to by the occupiers as colonies (colonies of what? Ants? Bees?) Both stories took place in Cape Coast and the setting is very significant to the story. Apart from the author being a Fanti from Cape Coast, Cape Coast was the first point of introduction to colonial rule. As a seaport city, it was the first town that was brought under colonial rule; hence ther
Read more