Library Additions and Other Award News

What would you do when you have searched for a book for so long and the time you found it, at a bookshop, you had only as much money as would take you back to the office? Do you buy it and walk, knowing that the distance between your current location, the bookshop, to your destination, the office, can in noway be covered by walking; or would you forgo it and risk spending another ten years or more searching for it? I chose the former and prayed for a miracle. And this is how come I have in my possession Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. Yeah! But I did not walk after the purchase. Miraculously, I met a friend who also love Ayi Kwei Armah and he lent me some money for transport and also got himself a copy.

In Other News
Shachi Kaul
The Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2010 winners have been announced. The overall winner was Shachi Kaul from India with Retirement. Shachi is a banker and former hotelier. She started writing during a sabbatical from work. Chief among her goals is to tell stories rooted in contemporary India that resonates with people everywhere. Her writing--both prose and poetry--is beginning to appear in thematic anthologies in Asia. Currently, she is working on her first novel.
Karen Jennings

The African Region winner was Karen Jennings from South Africa with From Dark. Karen was born in Cape Town in 1982. She holds Masters degrees in both English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. In 2009, she won the English Section of the Maskew Miller Longman (South Africa) Short Story Competition with her story The Shark. 
Shola Olowu-Asante
The Antie Isong Special Prize for a story coming from Nigeria was won by Shola Olowu-Asante with Dinner for Three. Shola was born in Nigeria but lives in Edinburgh with her husband and two children. She is a freelance broadcast journalist and has only just begun to try her hand at creative writing.

Read the rest here.

Comments

  1. The Author17 September 2010 at 19:50

    Congrats all round, then. Including to you for making the right choice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amy17 September 2010 at 20:25

    Congratulations both on finding the book, and miraculously finding a drive! Obviously buying a book is always the right choice :) And thanks for the information about those prize winners!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous19 September 2010 at 06:15

    Did u send in an entry, too?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Geoffrey20 September 2010 at 07:47

    @Fredua: You made the right choice. I read this book about three years ago and it still hunts me. It is often funny and uses lots of symbolisms like filth to portray themes like corruption. Trust me, you'll enjoy reading it.(I'm promising you that it could be on your list of all time favourite books by africans).

    ReplyDelete
  5. ImageNations20 September 2010 at 08:01

    @NYA, thanks...

    ReplyDelete
  6. ImageNations20 September 2010 at 08:04

    @Amy... And I am happy. Finding the drive was so miraculous and instant that I think were was a telepathic exchange of information.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ImageNations20 September 2010 at 08:06

    @Anonymous, which entry? If you mean the commonwealth prize, no. I haven't entered any literary competition before. May be I would one day

    ReplyDelete
  8. ImageNations20 September 2010 at 08:09

    @Geoffrey, I believe you. I have heard of this book for so long a time. I know it would be. We would talk about it when I am true, except that my reading pace has reduced and currently I am reading a 623-page A House for Mr. Biswas. Very funny. My last of Naipaul. That man is depressing and dystopian.

    ReplyDelete

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