Category: Sierra Leone

  • Iskanchi Book Prize 2024 Shortlist announced

    Iskanchi Book Prize 2024 Shortlist announced

    The shortlist for the inaugural Iskanchi Book Prize, a manuscript prize open to African writers, was announced on Monday, May 6, 2024. Iskanchi Press and Magazine, founded by publisher, journalist, and writer Kenechi Uzor in 2020, has produced several magazine editions of their magazine as well as numerous titles. The platform announced a new initiative…

  • Book Digest: Namina Forna, Christina Cooke, Mazi Nwonwu, Achille Mbembe

    Book Digest: Namina Forna, Christina Cooke, Mazi Nwonwu, Achille Mbembe

    We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Namina Forna, Christina Cooke, Mazi Nwonwu, and Achille Mbembe. The Eternal Ones by Namina Forna Publisher:  Delacorte PressDate:  February 13, 2024Genre:  Fiction, Young AdultLanguage:  EnglishWhere to find it:  Penguin Random House Namina Forna Namina Forna is the New…

  • Afritondo Short Story Prize 2024 longlist announced.

    Afritondo Short Story Prize 2024 longlist announced.

    The longlist for the Afritondo Short Story Prize 2024 was announced on Friday, February 23, 2024. Afritondo, a platform that aims to connect with and tell the stories of African and black minority populations across the globe, is the organisation behind the Afritondo Short Story Prize. Previous winners have been Alex Kadiri, Howard Meh-Buh Maximus,…

  • Sierra Leone’s Poda Poda Stories Fellows announced

    Sierra Leone’s Poda Poda Stories Fellows announced

    Josephine Kamara and Sulaiman Munda Bonnie were introduced as the new Poda Poda Stories Fellows on Monday, September 25, 2023. Poda-Poda Stories is a Sierra Leonean literary platform that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and literary criticism by emerging and established Sierra Leonean writers. Founded in 2020 by Sierra Leonean writer and journalist Ngozi Cole, the…

  • LOATAD West African Writers Residency 2023 recipients announced.

    LOATAD West African Writers Residency 2023 recipients announced.

    The recipients of the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD) West African Writers Residency 2023 were announced in Accra, Ghana on Friday, September 8, 2023. The Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD) is a private library, archive, writing residency, and museum dedicated to the work of African and Diaspora writers from…

  • Tracy Coker wins Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award 2022

    Tracy Coker wins Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award 2022

    Tracy Coker’s manuscript White Yams was declared the winner of the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award 2022 on Thursday, October 4, 2022. The Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award is open to unrepresented and unpublished authors for a novel in any adult fiction genre. This year it was judged by literary agents Rowan Lawton…

  • Book Digest: Binyavanga Wainaina, Monique Severin, Nike Campbell, Yessoh G.D

    Book Digest: Binyavanga Wainaina, Monique Severin, Nike Campbell, Yessoh G.D

    We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Binyavanga Wainaina, Monique Severin, Nike Campbell, and Yessoh G.D. How to Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina Publisher: PenguinPublication Date: September 29, 2022Genre: Nonfiction, EssaysLanguage: EnglishWhere to find it:  Penguin. Binyavanga Wainaina Binyavanga Wainaina was a seminal author…

  • Foday Mannah wins Mo Siewcharran Prize 2022

    Foday Mannah wins Mo Siewcharran Prize 2022

    Foday Mannah was declared the winner of the Mo Siewcharran Prize 2022 in a ceremony in London, UK on September 28, 2022. The Mo Siewcharran Prize was established to discover new underrepresented talent in memory of Nielsen BookData’s former director of marketing and communications Mo Siewcharran. It is co-founded and sponsored by her husband John…

  • Sierra Leone writer and librarian Yema Lucilda Hunter has passed away

    Sierra Leone writer and librarian Yema Lucilda Hunter has passed away

    Sierra Leonean librarian, novelist, and biographer Yema Lucilda Hunter passed away in Accra, Ghana on Sunday, August 21, 2022. Yema Lucilda Caulker was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone on 15 July 1943 to Richard Edmund Kelfa-Caulker and Olivette Hannah Stuart. Her father was a diplomat and educationist became the first African principal of the Albert…

  • Short Story Day Africa Prize 2021 shortlist announced.

    Short Story Day Africa Prize 2021 shortlist announced.

    The shortlist for the Short Story Day Africa Prize 2021 has been announced today, Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Short Story Day Africa recognises short story writers across the continent while also helping to increase their skills sets with workshops. Their Short Story Africa Day Prize has been won by Adam El Shalakany (2018), Tochukwu Emmanuel…

  • Ishmael Beah’s ‘Little Family’ for One Read in April 2021.

    Ishmael Beah’s ‘Little Family’ for One Read in April 2021.

    Ishmael Beah’s novel Little Family is the offering of the One Read App for April 2021. One Read is a mobile application, brought to you by Nigeria’s Sterling Bank and Ouida Books, aimed at promoting writers, publishers and other players in the African book industry to create a community of readers. So far, readers have…

  • Short Story Day Africa Prize 2020 longlist announced.

    Short Story Day Africa Prize 2020 longlist announced.

    The longlist for the Short Story Day Africa Prize 2020 has been announced today, October 8, 2020. Short Story Day Africa recognises short story writers across the continent while also helping to increase their skills sets with workshops. The Short Story Africa Day prize has been won by Adam El Shalakany (2018), Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor…

  • Ishmael Beah is New American Voices Award 2020 finalist.

    Ishmael Beah is New American Voices Award 2020 finalist.

    Ishmael Beah was announced a finalist for the Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Award 2020 on August 5, 2020. Fall for the Book is an independent non-profit literary arts organization that promotes reading by sponsoring a variety of year-round events and activities based at George Mason University, USA. An important aspect of this…

  • Ishmael Beah’s newest novel “Little Family” launches at Politics and Prose.

    Ishmael Beah’s newest novel “Little Family” launches at Politics and Prose.

    Ishmael Beah’s newest novel Little Family launched virtually at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., USA on April 28, 2020. The Sierra Leonean was streaming from Los Angeles. Ishmael Beah is an author and human rights activist who rose to fame because of his New York Times-bestselling memoir, A Long Way Gone. He…

  • A snapshot of Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 2.

    A snapshot of Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 2.

    Season 2 of Afrolit Sans Frontières was hosted by African writers from cities all over the world over the Internet from April 20-27, 2020. The Afrolit Sans Frontiers Virtual Literary Festival, an initiative by and for writers of African origin, started in March as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic international lockdown. The second edition…