FILLIP FOR AFRICAN WRITERS

African Crime Fiction With U.S. $1,000 Prize

Cordite Books, an imprint of Lagos-based Parresia Publishers is attempting to bring back African crime and spy fiction by launching a manuscript competition that will see the winner walk away with a N160, 000 prize money and a publishing deal.

The initiative is spearheaded by multiple award winning author Helon Habila, joint owner of the imprint, alongside Parresia, and editor of the new series the imprint will be producing.

In a previous interview with Sunday Trust, Habila, author of three novels, said he is passionate about the genre and blames the perceived poor reading culture on the shortage of soft literature in the crime and spy fiction category.

The competition, which is open to African writers, is for full length novel manuscripts between 60-80,000 words and must be set in part on the African continent.

Submissions for the competition are open from August 7th, 2013 and will close on November 30th, 2013. The winning manuscript will be published mid 2014 and will be available all across Africa, according to the organisers.

Submissions should be uploaded using the submissions manager on the Cordite Books website only (www.corditebooks.com)

The prize money is an advance on royalties for the winning entry while the first and second runner up will take home the prize of $250 (N40, 000) and $200 (N32,000) respectively.

Parresia's Managing Editor, Azafi Omoluabi-Ogosi said, "Cordite is meant to bring an African sensibility to the crime and spy fiction genre made... since espionage and crime happen in Africa just as anywhere else."

Helon Habila who will edit and judge the series and the competition is presently a professor of Creative Writing at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, possesses a 1995 degree in English Literature from the University of Jos, Nigeria. He moved to Lagos in 1999 to become the Stories Editor for Hints Magazine where he worked for a year before moving to Vanguard Newspaper, Nigeria's fourth largest daily, as Arts Editor. In 2001, his short story, "Love Poems", won the Caine Prize and he was invited by the British Council to become the first African Writing fellow at the University of East Anglia. His first novel, Waiting for an Angel, won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Novel (Africa Region) in 2003. In 2007 his second novel, Measuring Time, was published. His third book, Oil on Water, was published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and by Parrésia Books in Nigeria [2012].

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   BY ABUBAKAR ADAM IBRAHIM,