The Arts-Muse Fair

BACKGROUND The Aliyu Mohammed Book Prize is an annual award, open to new works of fiction or non-fiction written in Hausa. The prize is the Gusau Institute (GI)’s contribution to the encouragement of writing in Hausa, the most populous Chadic language and the major language of West Africa. It is both the first language and/or the lingua franca of millions in the region, and the award is meant to celebrate the cultural richness Hausa lends to several populations across state borders. This new competition for unpublished Hausa manuscripts offers editing, design and layout assistance for the winning entry, as well as an official introduction at the first Kaduna Book and Arts Festival (Kabafest), following the announcement of the winning manuscript. The prize will alternate between fiction (in even years) and non-fiction (in uneven years). Entrants to the Aliyu Mohammed Book Prize competition are asked to submit an excerpt of their manuscript, along with a 500-word s

Writivism has announced the joint shortlist for two 2017 Writivism prizes with four Nigerians on the joint shortlist of Eight. Munachim Amah and Blessing J. Christopher are on the Short Story Prize shortlist while Vivian Uchechi Ogbonna and Sada Malumfashi are on the Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction The shortlists were selected by the two different panels of judges for the two respective categories of this year’s prizes. 5th Annual Short Story Prize Fairies by Saaleha Bhamjee (South Africa) Mobache by Régine Gwladys Lebouda (Cameroon) Stolen Pieces by Munachim Amah (Nigeria) The (Un)Lucky Ones by Andrew C. Dakalira (Malawi) This Story Has No End by Blessing J. Christopher (Nigeria) Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction A Long Way From Home by Vivian Uchechi Ogbonna (Nigeria) Finding Binyavanga by Sada Malumfashi (Nigeria) Meat Bomb by Charles King (South Africa) Sada Malumfashi, one of the two Nigerians on the nonfiction shortlist re

The Guinness World Records documented the Barnes & Noble flagship bookstore in US (New York), having an area of 154,000 square feet and more than 12 miles of shelves, as the world’s biggest individual bookstore based on square footage since 1999. However, this record of the world’s largest brick-and-mortar bookstore is about to change with the inauguration, last week, of the Tehran Book Garden. On the other hand, perhaps a new category for the World Biggest Book Garden may have just been birthed.   Here are eight fact-fruits picked from the Book Garden that supports this record-breaking or record-making statement. Have a bite.      1.       The Tehran Book Garden, located on Abbasabad Hills in the northeast of the city of Tehran, covers an area of 65,000 square meters (about 700,000 square feet). 2.       The Book Garden is to serve the educational and cultural needs of visitors to the complex as well as guests to the annual Tehran International Book Fair.