Top listings

A renowned poet, Tanure Ojaide has won major national and international poetry awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region (1987), the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award (1988), twice the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry (1988 and 1997), and thrice the Association of Nigerian Authors' Poetry Prize (1988, 1994 and 2004).

Founded in 1990, the Akademie Schloss Solitude is a foundation under public law. According to its statutes, its task is to promote mainly younger, particularly gifted artists by means of residence fellowships, and by organizing public performances, readings, concerts and exhibitions by its residents. Akademie Schloss Solitude is subsidized by the State of Baden-Württemberg Lottery.

Farafina Books is an independent publisher of literary fiction, popular fiction, textbooks, coffee table books, general interest books and children books. Our focus is to make good quality and affordable books on Africa or by Africans available to a global audience.

Farafina magazine was started in 2004 as an online magazine. The first issue of the print magazine was published in October of 2005. It is a bimonthly publication. The magazine is dedicated to the best in contemporary ideas; intelligent without being pompous, well researched without being academic and opinionated without being pedantic. The magazine publishes everything from photo essays to cartoons, art interviews to political exposes, narrative essays to short stories.

Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo.

The objectives of the prize are to promote new voices, reward achievement, encourage wider readership and greater literacy, thereby increasing appreciation of different cultures and building understanding between cultures.

The Caine Prize for African Writing is named in memory of the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc. He was Chairman of Africa 95, and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for almost 25 years.

The four African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, Naguib Mahfouz and John Coetzee are Patrons of The Caine Prize. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is President of the Council and Jonathan Taylor is the Chairman.

Cassava Republic Press is a new literary press based in Abuja, Nigeria. Our core objective is to make quality contemporary literature available to the West African market at an affordable price.

We will provide Nigerians and other West Africans access to the best diasporic writing, as well as to discover, encourage, promote and publish new writing on the continent. Beyond unearthing new talent, there is a pedagogical component to our work. As well as organising writing tours for our authors, we also offer writer’s workshops and retreats in schools.

In addition to fiction and non-fiction, we will also be publishing a range of books for children. We are highly aware of the lack of material with an African focus that is of good quality. We believe that seeing oneself and one’s own culture and society reflected in beautifully made children’s books is a vital component in instilling confidence and self-belief in our children.

Diran Adebayo has been hailed as one of the most original literary talents around. His first novel, the acclaimed Some Kind of Black, a nineties' coming of age story, broke new ground for the London novel, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won him the Saga Prize, a Betty Trask Award, the Authors' Club's 'Best First Novel' Award, and the Writers Guild's New Writer of the Year for 1996. His second novel, 'My Once Upon A Time', received more rave reviews. It was been called "an exhilarating, magical fairytale for our times" and a novel that "turns the private eye genre on its head". Diran has also written stories for BBC TV and radio, has been a columnist for 'New Nation' newspaper, and broadcasts and writes frequently on social and cultural issues for organs ranging from 'The Culture Show' to 'The Guardian'. In 2003, he co-edited 'New Writing 12' (Picador), an anthology that showcases new UK and Commonwealth writing. He is currently writing his third novel, 'The Ballad of Dizzy and Miss P'. He is a member of the national Council of the Arts Council of England, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.