AKS COMMONWEALTH WINNER

AKWA IBOM PRODUCES COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER
With Emman Usman Shehu

The 2009 edition of the Commonwealth Prize For Literature has been won by Uwem Akpan, a Jesuit priest who hails from Ikot Akpan Eda in Akwa Ibom State.

His debut collection of short stories, Say You’re One Of Them, outclassed those by five South Africans namely Jassey Mackenzie's Random Violence, Megan Voysey-Braig' s Till We Can Keep An Animal and Chris Mamewick's Shepherds and Butchers, Sue Rabie's Boston Snowplough and Janet Bennet's Porcupine, in the First Book category of the Africa region.

In his acceptance speech, Akpan said he was excited to have made the shortlist. He said: "I thank the Commonwealth and judges. When I started writing fiction 10 years ago, I didn't know I'd go this far. Today, I have no words to express myself...I dedicate this prize to you, our dear people of Ikot Akpan Eda.

"It was in your midst, as a child, that I first heard the powerful, elemental Bible stories at Sunday Masses. And it was in your midst that I watched our mothers and fathers, after Mass, telling our own stories, sipping sweet palm wine. I cannot forget the seasons and celebrations, laughter and quarrels, drunkenness and food, ekpo drumming and nkakat dance. And thanks for always reminding me when I come home from my missionary travels that though nsasak, the bird, flies from the earth to the anthill, he is still on earth. God bless you for your presence in my life."

Reverend Father Akpan studied Philosphy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities and Theology at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He has taught English and Literature in English in Nigerian secondary schools and received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. Prior to his Commonwealth Prize for Literature feat, he was on the Caine shortlist. He is also on a couple of reputable shortlists in the United States and Britain.

As a Commonwealth regional winner, he will now compete with other regional winners at the final  which comes up on May 16, 2009 in New Zealand. At the regional stage Akpan has won one thousand British pounds. The overall winner in New Zealand will smle home with five thousand British pounds.

There are strong indications that Akpan could emerge as overall winner. His book, a collection of short stories about children set in various African countries, has been highly praised by several reviewers especially in Europe and America.

Alan Cheuse describes the book as an important literary debut and that “juxtaposed against the clarity and revelation in Akpan's prose—as translucent a style as I've read in a long while—we find subjects that nearly render the mind helpless and throw the heart into a hopeless erratic rhythm out of fear, out of pity, out of the shame of being only a few degrees of separation removed from these monstrous modern circumstances.”

Alastair Niven confidently proclaims it is an “astonishing first collection of short stories” and “marks the arrival of a major writer.”  While in Levi Asher, “ Uwem Akpan's work has a straight-arrow solidity, and some readers may wish for more artistic variation. What this book offers is compassion and awareness, a fitting result for a story collection by a Jesuit priest.”

 

Akpan, who only recently returned to Nigeria from Zimbabwe where he had been posted by his superiors after his MFA programme in Michigan, was hosted three weeks ago by the Abuja Writers’ Forum (AWF). It was his first public reading in Nigeria and he shared the spotlight with Dr Musa Idris Okpanachi, a prizewinning poet from the University of Maiduguri.

Dr  Shehu is the President of the Abuja Writers’ Forum (AWF)

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