After this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature was cancelled on grounds of a sexual scandal, an Alternative Nobel Prize has emerged instead, and up for it are two of our very own Chimamanda Adichie and Nnedi Okorafor.
No Nigerian has won the Nobel Prize for Literature since Wole Soyinka did in 1986. Soyinka, “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”, is one of the few Africans to ever even be nominated for the prize, since the likes of Chinua Achebe were snubbed by the award.
Hopefully, this New Academy tears down the Swedish Academy’s reputation for being too Euro-Centric and awards it to one of ours.
The winner will be announced October 14th and presented at a formal event with a grand celebration December 10th 2018. Subsequently the New Academy will be dissolved December 11 after the grand celebration.
