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Idumaese Alao Foundation Organises Inaugural Idumaese Alao Prize For Literature

Idumaese Alao Foundation has instituted the Idumaese Alao Prize For Literature in memory of Idumaese Alao who passed away in February, 2024. The annual prize is aimed at spotlighting and rewarding talented writers and literary artists across Nigeria, Africa and the world at large. The foundation will also curate and publish the prize anthology.

Call For Entries (Poetry)

The Idumaese Alao Foundation is hereby calling for entries (poetry) to the Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature, 2024, with a prize of 100,000 naira.

Submission Guidelines

  1. The theme is Terminal Frailties. We are on the lookout for a variety of creative, brave, experimental interpretations of the theme.
  2. Entries should not be longer than 40 lines.
  3. Only Nigerian writers, 18 years and above, residing anywhere in the world are eligible.
  4. Entries should be sent as word documents, Times New Roman, double line spacing.
  5. There should be no identifying information on the entry.
  6. Entry should be accompanied by a cover letter that comprises author’s third-person brief biography and location.
  7. All entries should be sent to idumaesealaofoundation@gmail.comwith the subject, 2024 Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature.
  8. Deadline is 10 May, 2024.
  9. Plagiarism and use of Artificial Intelligence will not be tolerated.
  10. Judges for the 2024 Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature are Osieka Osinimu Alao, Paul Liam and Rasaq Malik Gbolahan. The judges’ decision is final.

The Judges

Osieka Osinimu Alao is a Nigerian writer, poet, essayist, editor and academic. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. He was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2019, Poets In Nigeria’s Poetically Written Prose Contest 2022, Folorunsho Editor’s Poetry Prize 2023, Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize 2023, and Toyin Falola Prize 2024. He was shortlisted for the Albert Jungers Poetry Prize 2022 and The Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize 2023. He was First Prize Winner of the Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest Soro Soke Edition 2022, Second Runner Up in the Creators of Justice Literary Award (Short Story) 2022 and First Runner Up in the Rhonda Gail Williford Award for Poetry 2023. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Epidocyle (2011), Apocyle (2012), and Blood and Ink (2013). His works are featured in ANMLY, The Shore, Ta Adesa, The Beatnik Cowboy, Muse, African Writer Magazine, Rigorous, International Human Rights Art Movement, Pepper Coast Lit, Kalahari Review, Lumiere Review, Poetry Column NND, and elsewhere. He currently serves as Editorial Secretary, Bade Journal of Arts (BAJA) and Director, Idumaese Alao Foundation. He is @OOAlao_ on X & Instagram.

Rasaq Malik Gbolahan is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a cofounder of Àtẹ́lẹwọ́, the first digital journal devoted to publishing work written in the Yorùbá language. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks No Home In This Land, selected for Chapbook Box edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani, and The Other Names of Grief published by Konya Shamsrumi. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in African American Review, Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Minnesota Review, New Orleans Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Rattle, Salt Hill, Spillway, Stand, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He won Honorable Mention in 2015 Best of the Net for his poem “Elegy,” published in One. In 2017, Rattle and Poet Lore nominated his poems for the Pushcart Prize. He was shortlisted for Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2017. He was a finalist for Sillerman First Book for African Poets in 2018. He is @RasaqMalikGbolahan on Facebook and @rasaq_malik on X.

Paul Liam is a poet, literary critic, and author of two poetry collections; Indefinite Cravings (2012) and Saint Sha’ade and Other Poems (2014). A 2014 Fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency, Iseyin, Oyo State, Nigeria, and co-editor of the Ebedi Review. In 2014, he was honoured with an award of literary excellence for his contributions to the development of literature in Nigeria by the Ebedi International Writers Residency. Similarly, he has also been recognized by the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation and the Association of Nigerian Authors, Niger State for his contributions to the growth of literature with various certificates of merit. His poems have appeared in Revista Prometeo Numeros 119-120 (Memorias; 33rd Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin, Julio de 2023), Mingled Coins; Seventy Love Poems, (selected and edited by Okinba Launko, Kraft Books Ibadan, 2020, anthology), Echoes of Carnage; A Collection of Poems on Zamfara, (edited by Jalaludeen Ibrahim and Maryam Gatawa, A.I Publishers Kano, 2021, anthology), Blank Pages Anthology of Poems, Issue I (a cross-cultural anthology, curated by Michal Musialowsky, Blank Pages Global Collective, Germany, 2021, online anthology), Fireflies (Kraft Books Ibadan, 2009, anthology), and Life is Like a Flower (Maziriyya Books, 2005, anthology). Liam served as the National Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement (WPM) in Nigeria and was a guest writer at the 33rd Medellin International Poetry Festival and the 1st Congress of the World Poetry Movement which took place in Medellin, Colombia, and Caracas, Venezuela in July 2023. He is a consulting art editor with the Daily Review Newspapers and a former assistant editor of The Art Muse Fair. He was equally a literary columnist and freelance reporter with Newsline Newspapers, Minna, Niger State. Regarded as one of Nigeria’s most prolific literary critics writing on contemporary Nigerian literature today, he has published over a dozen book reviews and critical essays locally and internationally. Liam has attended several literary and art festivals including the Abuja Literary and Arts Festival (ALITFEST2023), Lagos International Poetry Festival (LIPFEST2023) Hadiza Aliyu School Festival (HIASFEST 2023), Centre for Arts and Indigenous Studies (CAIS) IBBUL’s 2nd Abubakar Gimba Lecture (2023), Festival Poetry Calabar (2019), the 38th International Conference of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Enugu State (2019), among others. Liam is also a communication consultant based in Abuja. He is @paul.liam on Facebook, @paul.liam on Instagram and @Terkhimbipaul on X.