By
Anote Ajeluorou
Ibadan-based
poet and lawyer, Tade Ipadeola has won The Nigerian Prize for Literature 2013
in the poetry category. Ipadeola won with his collection, The Sahara Testament. It won ahead of two other shortlisted poetry
collections, Amu Nnadi’s Through the
Window of a Sand Castle and Ogochukwu Promise’s Wild Letters.
Ipadeola will be awarded US$100,000 in an
award ceremony for winning Africa’s biggest literary prize and one of the
biggest literary prizes in the world.
In announcing the prize in Lagos, General Manager, External Relations of Nigeria
Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) company, sponsors of the prize, Dr.
Kudo Eresia-Eke said, “Finally, a winner has emerged for The
Nigeria Prize for Literature, 2013 edition. The Sahara Testaments by Tade
Ipadeola has been adjudged winner of the prestigious prize by
the Panel of Judges led by Prof. Romanus Egudu.
Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testaments beat the other 200
books submitted for the competition this year to emerge winner”.
In
appraising each of the works, Eresia-Eke said the three-man jury including
Prof. Molara Ogundipe, Dr. Andrew Ame Aba and international literary consultant
from Ghana, Prof. Kofi Anyidoho, “The Judges thought Promise’s Wild
Letters to be of “high human relevance as reflected in her bold
treatment of subject-matter such as the persistent menace of Boko Haram. Similarly, her poems
consistently alert societal leaders on their obligations to the under-privileged,
and a message of hope underscores the collection.
“Of Nnadi’s Through the Window of a Sandcastle, the
judges hold that “The work is presented in elegant, well-crafted language,
depicting contrastive experiences of pain, decay, pleasure and beauty. His work
reflects artistic maturity, seriousness of thought, integrity and
coherence, as well as the effective use of poetic devices such as imagery,
irony and sound”.
Conclusively, Eresia-Eke said, “In arriving at their decision of Ipadeola’s The
Sahara Testaments as winner of this year’s competition, the
judges pointed out that the poet used “the Sahara as a metonymy for
the problems of Africa and, indeed, the whole of humanity… and the
work encompasses vast stores of knowledge in an encyclopeadic dimension.
“Ipadeola’s use
of poetic language demonstrates a striking marriage of thought and verbal
artistry expressed in the blending of sound and sense. The work is replete with
historical, geographical, and literary allusions and tropes. On the whole, the
poet demonstrates an outstanding level of intellectual exposure and knowledge,
language use, and awareness of literature, which should be beneficial to
readers and writers alike.”
By winning this year’s poetry prize, poets across the country will heave
a sigh of relief following the debacle of no-winner declared by the judges in
2009 after it had first been awarded in 2006 to Pa Gabriel Okara and late Prof.
Ezenwa Ohaeto.
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