Losing The Nigeria Prize for Literature: The writers must receive our kindness.
By Obinna Udenwe
WRITING, as has been said by many people, is a solitary and mentally draining job. The writer conceives the idea for the story, takes time out of his busy schedule and proceeds to write it. It takes months and years to finish it, including edits and finding publishers. And once that is done, he lives in constant fear of acceptance: will readers love the book? Will they find me a worthy writer? These drain the writer.
Now, if he is ‘unlucky’ to be shortlisted for a prize, he is thrust into the spotlight. He, not just his work, is critiqued and analyzed. In this age of social media, he fears to come online, seeing as everyone has an opinion on his work, including those who read less than one book a year. True.
For The Nigeria Prize for Literature, organised by NLNG, the writer on the shortlist faces a turbulent sea. The prize money is worth USD$100,000, about N135,000,000 in today’s market, which can change the writer’s entire career, his family’s fortune and his life forever. Besides the prize money, his book becomes widely known and read. But what happens when the writer, together with the other shortlists, are gathered in a grand event as it happened on 9 October 2026, a dinner attended by high level VIPs, including past presidents and he doesn’t win the prize? (That night, in that hall, can be one of the most draining nights for anyone).
The writer who doesn’t win trudges back to his hotel room, a massive, grandly furnished room he had been living in for a day or two, awaiting his fate. He enjoys a lonely night and thinks about all the castles he had built in his mind of what he could do with that money. It is worse for the writer if he didn’t attend the event with his family to keep him engaged all night, talking about this and that to ward off sad thoughts.
The saddest part of it all is that the writer who didn’t win the prize is given nothing by the prize organizers. Yes.
Here is how it works:
The NLNG flies the writer in business class to Lagos. Sends a chauffeured SUV to the airport to drive you to Eko Hotel, one of the most luxurious and expensive hotels in the country; allows you eat everything on the menu to your delight for free, brings you to the award diner and feeds you champagne and assorted dishes and when you lose, chauffeurs you back to the airport the very next morning, puts you in a business class flight back to your home state and gives you N0.00. Yes. N0.00. 0k. You get nothing. Not even N1.00 to buy “Daddy oyoyo! Daddy oyoyo!” for your children when you return.
This is more disheartening if you are shortlisted alongside an individual who lacks a sense of generosity. He or she receives the USD$100,000 and never contacts you again, not even to send N10,000 out of it to you to say “please go buy yourself a bottle of beer.”
And this is why the writer who is shortlisted for The Nigeria Prize for Literature must ensure that they first steel their mind and not take the whole thing seriously. They must convince themselves that they are a part of a movie, and when they don’t win, assume the movie is ended. They must ensure they attend with a loved family member and friends to keep them company, and their friends must ensure that when they return, they host them to drinks, dinner and take them to lunch, and even support financially.
In 2021, I was on the shortlist for the prize. That night when I didn’t win, my mum and dad, who were with me at the event, made jokes to distract me. When I returned, they hosted me to dinner; my in laws hosted me to dinner and friends organized a welcome-back party for me. Then a friend, Bar. Onu John Onwe, organized a luncheon and invited my friends, family and literary associates to attend. All these made me feel like I had won, especially as the person who won and who is a dear friend never contacted me again for over three years, not even when her husband had mentioned several times in events leading up to the award that “if any of you wins, don’t forget the other.”
Two years later, when Romeo Oriogun received the same prize for Nomad, he gave out USD$10,000 each to the two other shortlists, a generosity that will remain a talking point in our literary circle, and this kind gesture should be encouraged from every person who wins the prize. It must not be USD$10,000. If can be USD$1,000 or USD$500. In fact, when Chika Unigwe won in 2012 with On Black Sisters Street, she shared money to almost every writer, young and old, known to her at the time. We hardly knew each other at the time as we had met in a flight to Frankfurt, but she emailed me from Belgium and got my account details and sent USD$200. Imagine receiving USD$200 as a student in 2012 from a writer you admired. Later on, I realized almost every Nigerian writer got something from Chika. USD$1,000 and more, USD$500 here, USD$100 there.
I want to congratulate Ogaga Ifowodo (Why Does God Need a Gun?) again for his win and to encourage him not to leave out the other two who were with him on the race. It could easily have gone to either of them. Things are really difficult in the country right now and USD$1,000 given in kindness will go a long way. The Nigerian literary community is a close knit one and we should always show kindness.
I had rooted for Tares Oburumu (Flora’s Love Colony) to win. He is a brilliant poet. I encourage him not to give up and to keep writing and to take delight in knowing that he is beloved by many writers. Furthermore, I will like to support Tares with a token N100,000 for him to take himself to a good beer joint and buy himself some barbecue fish, knowing that they will receive nothing more from the prize organizers aside being chauffeured to the airport and flown business class.
And to everyone of us, we should endeavor to be kind to the writers who did not win. Words of encouragement and love would go a long way in helping them survive these troubling few days ahead. We should be kind!
* Udenwe is an award-winning author of Colours of Hatred (shortlisted) and Years of Shame. Article culled from his Facebook wall
