Deadline for Submission Extended to December 3.
The Book Review Competition at Afapinen is a prize for book reviews. Recognising book reviews as fundamental in the ecosystem of publishing in Nigeria, it aims to expand critical discourse on books and to reward critical excellence, while nurturing young literary critics in the process.
The competition is on a rolling basis. Now in its second iteration, we are calling for critical reviews on the novel, Some Angels Don’t See God by Ever Obi.
As we stated in our last call, there is no precise rule, or rules, for how you engage a work under review. But certain things make a good review stand out, and that is what we are looking for in your submitted entries.
It is important to creatively situate your text under review, as well as engage it in actual literary discourse and appreciation following the book’s attempt at interpreting truths about life or the human condition. We prize erudition and the celebration of language, above all. We will look out for these in submitted entries.
About the novel
Peter Idenala’s stable but uninteresting life, as an ambitious young banker, is disrupted when he comes across a book, published as fiction, recounting the torrid experiences he lived through during his days in the university. He is shaken because the writer is Neta Okoye, a girl who broke his heart and dumped him six years before. Peter is forced to revisit his past, to relive his once complicated relationship with Neta and the mistakes that marred their years in school; the friendships they found and lost.
When the book leads him directly to her, they are faced with a difficult decision: Continue with their emotionally-empty lives, independent of each other, or be together again and confront the trail of past misfortunes that binds them. For Neta, accepting Peter again comes with a promise of happiness, but it also carries the risk of uncovering the secrets she has carried throughout her life. Secrets involving a brother she used to sleep with.
Their relationship faces a battle against this past blighted by pain and loss, by youth and stupidity, by unprotected sex and incest, by betrayal and heartbreaks, by manslaughter and suicide.
Ever Obi is a business executive and fiction writer based in the Netherlands and Lagos. His debut, the acclaimed mystical novel Men Don’t Die was published in 2019, exploring themes of death and spiritualism, and has been discussed on several forums, including the Oxford Literary Festival. His second book, Some Angels Don’t See God, was released in Nigeria and the UK in 2022, and was shortlisted for the ANA Prose Prize. His writing has been categorised as a hybrid of speculative and literary fiction, probing into spiritual concepts of immortality and the afterlife, as well as more existent themes of money, love and friendship. He was born and raised in Aba and is a recipient of the 2024 Global Recognition Award.
Entry regulations
The competition is open to all writers.
Entries should not be less than 1,800 words and not more than 3,000 words.
Entries must be submitted via this Google form.
Deadline for submission is 3 December, 2024, 23:00 WAT.
The winners will be announced on Afapinen on 7 December, 2024.
The winners’ reviews will be published in Afapinen.
Reviewers are encouraged to post excerpts of their reviews on Goodreads before they submit. This does not, in any way, affect the prize process.
Prizes
First prize: N150,000
Second prize: N50,000
Third prize: N30,000
The entries will be judged by:
Carl Terver, who holds a BA in English from Benue State University, Makurdi. He is the author of the photobook, Glory to the Sky and founder of Afapinen. Terver writes about film, literature, and photography.
Tope-EniObanke Adegoke, a literary theorist and critic. He has a Wawa Book Review-Goethe Institut certificate in literary criticism and has written dozens of book reviews for Wawa Book Review and Africa in Words.
Ever Obi’s Some Angels Don’t See God is available via PAGE Bookstore, Roving Heights, Bookville World, Ouida Bookstore, Mosuro Booksellers, Terra Kulture, Bookpeddller, Blackwells Store (UK), Porto Bello Bookshop UK, Amazon.
We are looking forward to your submissions. Best of luck. You can read Adegoke’s interview with Obi.
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