The Nommo Awards 2018 winners were announced at the opening ceremony for the Ake Festival 2018 on October 26. They are Tade Thompson, Kwabena Ofei, Setor Fiadzigbey, Wole Talabi, and Tochi Onyebuchi.
The Nommo Awards were introduced by the African Speculative Fiction Society in 2017 to cast a much needed focus on “different” writing. This different under focus was magical realism, Sci-Fi and everything that would fail to get a space in the “standard spaces” that we are familiar with. The first winners of the award were Tade Thompson for Best Novel, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, as well as Tendai Huchu and Lesley Nneka Arimah sharing Best Short Story honours. The Best Graphic Novel in the awards announced at the Ake Festival 2017 was The Corpse Exhibition by Chimurenga Chronic.
The second edition of the awards were on this year and the shortlists were announced in April with the announcement of winners to be made at the Ake Festival 2018 in Lagos. The winners were announced at the festival’s opening ceremony by Jennifer Makumbi Nansubuga and Zukiswa Wanner. They are;
- Best novella: The Murders of Molly Southbourne, Tade Thompson (Tor.com Publishing).
- Best Graphic Novel: Lake of Stars, Writer Kwabena Ofei Artiist Setor Fiadzigbey http://lakeoftearsghana.com/volumes/.
- Best Short Story: The Regression Test, Wole Talabi.
- Best novel: Beasts Made of Night, Tochi Onyebuchi (Penguin Young Readers Group).
Three of the winners of the awards were available at the opening ceremony and their comments were;
Kwabena Ofei
Best Graphic novel, Lake of Stars, Writer Kwabena Ofei, Artist Setor Fiadzigbey
http://lakeoftearsghana.com/volumes/
Setor and I weren’t expecting to win anything because the only impact we thought Lake of Tears was going to have was in our community and here I am receiving an award in front of all you amazing people. That in fact tells me that there is power in African creative collaborations. So all I would say is that all of us should just continue to collaborate together across the pond, in the pond, around the pond, under the pond. We should just continue doing amazing things. Let’s do a lot more because, we really are it. Let’s collaborate, create and kick arse.
Wole Talabi, The Regression Test
Best Short Story
I have been writing for a long time. I write science fiction mostly because I think that it’s cool. The Regression Test is more philosophical than anything else which is interesting because I came up with the idea at a massage parlour and finished it in the bar and here I am now. Thank you for everyone who read the story. Thank you for everyone that voted for it. If you haven’t read it yet I hope you do, (and) I hope you enjoy it. It features a 111 year old Nigerian woman as the main character so I think that’s interesting, you might like that. But everyone keep reading, keep writing and I hope that we all enjoy these fantastical futures that we are going to be talking about for the next three days.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Beasts Made of Night, Penguin Young Readers Group.
Best Novel
I can’t express what an honour this is. Growing up Naija American, I’d developed an affinity with cyborgs sort of half of both, all of neither, is he human, is he a machine, is he Nigerian, is he American. Writing Beasts Made of Night was the first novel where I allowed myself to really delve into Nigeria, my Nigeria heritage, where I come from, and in many ways it was an attempt on my part to go from conceiving of myself as half Nigerian into all Nigerian, recognising in my Africaness my full humanity so I must thank you for bestowing upon me this honour.
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