News from Penguin South Africa

Lest we forget, the Penguin Prize for African Writing Winners were announced on September 4, 2010.

A Nigerian and Zambian won the two prizes for non-fiction and fiction.

The following is the report from Penguin South Africa.

“We were overwhelmed by the number of entries for these two awards and, after hearing from
the judges and readers who read the submissions, encouraged by the writing talent
coming out of our continent. Congratulations to the two worthy winners.”
Alison Lowry, CEO, Penguin Books South Africa




NON-FICTION
Pius Adesanmi - You’re Not a Country, Africa!



In this groundbreaking collection of essays Pius Adesanmi tries to unravel what it is that Africa means to him as an African, and by extension to all those who inhabit this continent of extremes. This is a question that exercised some of the continent’s finest minds in the twentieth century, but which pan-Africanism, Negritude, nationalism, decolonisation and all the other projects through which Africans sought to restore their humanity ultimately failed to answer. Crisscrossing the continent, Adesanmi engages with the enigma that is Africa in an attempt to make meaning of this question for all twenty-first century Africans.
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Pius Adesanmi was born in Nigeria but now lives in Ottowa, Canada.

FICTION
Ellen Banda-Aaku - Patchwork




Destined from birth to inhabit two very different worlds – that of her father, the wealthy Joseph Sakavungo, and that of her mother, his mistress – this emotive tale takes us to the heart of a young girl’s attempts to come to terms with her own identity and fashion a future for herself from the patchwork of the life she was born into. Beautifully constructed, warm and wise, this is a novel that will transport the reader to a world in which we can all become more of the sum of our parts.


AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Ellen Banda-Aaku was born in Zambia and now resides in London, England.

2010-09-15 - The Postmistress Wins 2010 Exclusive Books Boeke Fiction Prize - Readers' Choice

2010-09-09 - Melly, Mrs Ho And Me.

2010-09-08 - Damon Galgut's In A Strange Room Shortlisted For The 2010 Man Booker Prize

2010-09-06 - Penguin Prize For African Writing Winners Announced

2010-08-27 - Cooked In Africa - Finalist For A 2010 Loerie Award

2010-08-19 - Penguin Books South Africa - Best Trade Publisher Of The Year

2010-08-18 - 2010 Booksellers’ Choice Award - Spud Learning To Fly

2010-07-28 - 2010 Man Booker - Long-list

2010-07-23 - Little Ice Cream Boy - Shortlisted For The 2010 M-net Literary Award

2010-07-15 - Why Africa Is Poor

2010-07-07 - Penguin Books South Africa Announces Penguin Prize For African Writing Shortlist

2010-07-06 - Tooth And Nailed

2010-06-25 - Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Series

76 Writers Reflect on the beauty of the Hudson Valley

Chinua Achebe


Famous Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is among the 76 outstanding writers chronicled in a new book by author Nina Shengold and photographer Jennifer May.


The writers reflected on the literary life, the craft of writing, and the beauty of the Hudson Valley in a great collection of their portraits, River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers.

NINA SHENGOLD is Books Editor at Chronogram magazine, and has written author profiles for Poets & Writers. Her novel Clearcut was published by Anchor Books in 2005. She won the Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love. With Eric Lane, she has edited twelve theatre anthologies for Vintage Books and Viking Penguin. She lives in Stone Ridge, New York, with her daughter, Maya.
Visit her website: www.ninashengold.com.

JENNIFER MAY’s portraits of authors have appeared on book jackets for Harcourt, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Norton, Seven Stories, Doubleday, and others. In 2009, May flew around the United States photographing women for The L Life: Extraordinary Lesbians Making a Difference (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011). Her photography has also appeared in periodicals including the New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Country Home; Chronogram; Hudson Valley Magazine; Poets & Writers; and Gourmet. She lives with her husband, the artist Chris Metze, in Woodstock, New York.

Visit her website: www.jennifermay.com.





The Hudson Valley writers.

Chinua Achebe
Susannah Appelbaum
John Ashbery
Shalom Auslander
Scott Ian Barry
Barbara Bash
Helen Benedict & Stephen O’Connor
Gwendolyn Bounds
Jon Bowermaster
John Bowers
Wesley Brown
Akiko Busch
Kris Carr
Benjamin Cheever
Da Chen & Sunny
Laura Shaine Cunningham
John Darnton
Cornelius Eady & Sarah Micklem
Nick Flynn
Martha Frankel
Alison Gaylin
Tony, Dan, & Frank D. Gilroy
Jonathan Gould

Mikhail Horowitz
Marie Howe
Marilyn Johnson
Robert Kelly
Lucy Knisley
Casey Kurtti
James Lasdun
Naton Leslie
Ann M. Martin
Jana Martin
Valerie Martin & John Cullen
Malachy, Alphie, & Frank McCourt
Daniel Mendelsohn
Bradford Morrow
Ron Nyswaner
Susan Orlean
Leila Philip
Daniel Pinkwater
Julie Powell
Nicole Quinn
David Rees
Susan Richards
Charley Rosen
Edwin Sanchez

Edward Sanders
Esmeralda Santiago
Gene Santoro
John Sayles
Edward Schwarzschild
Pete Seeger
Danny Shanahan
John Patrick Shanley
Russell Shorto
Zachary Sklar
Sparrow
Nova Ren Suma
Hudson Talbott
Abigail Thomas
Corinne Trang
Janine Pommy Vega
Linda Villarosa
Nancy Willard
Daniel Wolff
Rebecca Wolff
Kim Wozencraft
(Nina Shengold)
(Jennifer May)

More details.

Odega Shawa Exposes the Pastors of the Apocalypse

Nigeria is world famous for thousands pentecostal churches.

Odega Shawa Exposes the Pastors of the Apocalypse



When Odega Shawa gave me an autographed copy of his critical analytical book “Pastors of the Apocalypse”, I was anxious and curious to find out the identities of the pastors and read the 105 pages in five hours without stepping out of my office.

Odega’s major focus is on the Nigerian pastors of the new generation churches who have their own interpretations of the Word of God for their own selfish motives. These pastors he nicknamed “Top Cat pastors” and he actually mentioned their names and their denominations. He must have done a thorough research on them to be able to separate the sheep from the goats among them. He mentioned altercations between Pastor Tunde Bakare and Bishop David Oyedepo, the controversial confrontation between Rev. Chris Okotie and Pastor T.B. Joshua and the issues raised over the glamourous personality of the late Pastor Bimbo Odukoya of the The Fountain of Life Church and the refuted comments made by Prophet T.O. Obadare, founder of the World Soul-Winning Evangelistic Ministries (WOSEM)..

Odega challenged the mercantilism of the worldly prosperity theology of some of the pastors and found them wanting in the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. He made relevant references to the teachings of the Holy Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament to prove his points.

Odega’s reference to Dimethyltryptamine on the question of the origins of God and the existential facts of life affecting the human species and their destiny is also as controversial as his polemic analysis of the crisis of faith being exploited by these so called “Pastors of the Apocalypse”.

The gullibility and hypocrisy of most of the millions of church goers in Nigeria have made them easy preys of the false prophets or the wolves in sheep clothing who are giving Christianity a bad name.

“Pastors of the Apocalypse” is a must read for everyone who needs more knowledge on the history of religion, the challenges of the Christian fate and how to identify the true ministers and their congregations in contrast to the confused and fake multitudes.

Odega Shawa, a graduate of the University of Lagos has written a well researched book and his English is flawless.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima