A few weeks ago I talked about this amazing new opportunity for African creatives from the Oppenheimer fund supported by Financial Times. Oppenheimer for those a conglomerate that made their millions in the diamond times while the Financial Times are a leading media voice from Europe.
The Emerging Voices awards are aimed at various creative disciplines with writers from Africa, artists from Latin America and film makers from Asia. The award worth US$40,000 to the winner announced the longlist for those who would be in the running to win the big prize in November this year. It was a decent cross section of the writers from around the continent.
The shortlist of those who are now in the driving seat for the goodies were recently announced and they are;
- Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya) for Dust published by Granta books
- Scholastique Mukasonga for Our Lady of the Nile published by Archipelago Books
- Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) for The Fishermen published by Pushkin Press
Yvonne isn’t a new name for the reader of this blog with her bookDust wowing everyone including this blogger. Her most recent accolade is a longlist for the Folio Prize making it through to the shortlist only for the prize to go to another worthy writer.
Chigozie Obioma recently appeared on the radar with his appearance on the Man Booker Prize long list. Lastly is Scholastique Mukasonga who is a Rwandan living in France.
We shall keep you posted on how this one ends up.
