CORA-NPL Book Party 2024 hosts 11 children’s writers in Lagos
By Editor
THE 15th CORA-Nigeria Prize for Literature Book Party 2024 edition will host the 11 writers longlisted for the USD$100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature (NLP), endowed and promoted by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG. The Book Party that has become established as an enlivening convergence of writers, book enthusiasts and culture workers will hold on Saturday, August 17, 2024. Venue: Shell Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos @1:00pm (prompt).
The event will accommodate virtual guests via Zoom, and will be broadcast live on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. The genre in focus is children’s literature. The 11-longlist is drawn from 153 entries submitted for the 2024 edition of the prize. A Father’s Pride by Ndidi Chiazor-Enenmor, The Road Does Not End by Familoni Oluranti Olubunmi, Mighty Mite and Golden Jewel by Henry Akubuiro, Village Boy by Anietie Usen, Wish Maker by Uchechuckwu Peter Umezurike, Risi Recycle – The DustBin Girl by Temiloluwa Adeshina, The Third Side of a Coin by Hyginus Ekwuazi, The Children at the IDP Camp by Olatunbosun Taofeek, Grandma and the Moon’s Hidden Secret by Jumoke Verissimo, The Magic Jalabiya by Ayo Oyeku and Bode’s Birthday Party by Akanni Festus Olaniyi.
The party, a literary feast of ideas and life, celebrates the authors and their works for emerging as some of the very best in the country. It promises to be an afternoon of literary feasting, featuring performances, wining and dining. The Nigeria Prize for Literature was inaugurated in 2004 and sponsored by Nigerian LNG Limited, with the prize money raised from USD$20,000 to $50,000 and now USD$100,000 prize – the biggest of its kind in Africa. Jude Idada won the last children’s literature in 2019 with Boom Boom.
The CORA-Nigeria Prize for Literature Book Party — a special iteration of the CORA Book Party launched in 1996 — was initiated after a review of the first five years of the esteemed prize project. The idea is to create a platform through which the public gets to engage with the works considered the best of the usually over 200 entries per edition of the prize.
CORA is a group consisting of artistes, art enthusiasts, art promoters and art writers committed to the flowering of all contemporary arts of the Nigerian people. It has organised, every year since 1999, the Lagos Book & Art Festival, (LABAF), critically described as ‘the biggest culture picnic on the African continent.’ The 26th edition has ‘Breakout: Hope is a Stubborn Thing,’ as theme and will be held from November 11 — 17, 2024 at Freedom Park.
