Fiston Mwanza Mujila is the winner of the Etisalat Prize for Literature 2015 and the £15,000 prize money for his debut novel Tram 83. The announcement was made earlier today at the Intercontinental Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Tram 83 is story about two friends, one a budding writer home from abroad, the other an ambitious racketeer, who meet in the most notorious nightclub—Tram 83—in a war-torn city-state in secession, surrounded by profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities. It plunges the reader into the modern African gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colorfully exotic, using jazz rhythms to weave a tale of human relationships in a world that has become a global village.
The novel which was initially in French emerged in 2014 going on to win a slew of awards before being translated into English by Roland Glasser. This was then presented to a new audience and the nominations have been coming as well here. His novel is currently in the running for the Man Booker Prize this year.
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