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PRIZE

SARRAOUNIA PRIZE FOR YOUNG ADULT FICTION

Empowering Africa's Youth

The Arts & Culture programme at Abdou Moumouni University in Niger and the publishing house Amalion in Senegal are pleased to announce the call for entries for the Sarraounia Prize for Young Adult Fiction to contribute to the availability of reading material for African young adults and to promote literature to help better understand the world of African youths. Every two years, the Sarraounia Prize will be awarded to the best unpublished fiction for young adults written in English, French or Hausa by African authors and illustrators based in Africa.

For the 2020 edition, the winner will receive a prize of 1,000 euros, and the winning entry will be published and disseminated by Amalion and its partners from November 2020. The Sarraounia Prize will explore all traditional and digital media technologies to disseminate its activities and will endeavour to promote the writer and their work in various forums, in order to bring their work to the attention of book industry actors and the general public.

The Arts & Culture programme at Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, Niger offers courses in arts and culture from Bachelor’s to Doctorate programmes that combine theoretical knowledge, technical learning and artistic practice. The programme welcomes artists in creative residencies, offers master class sessions and seminars. Recruitment is multidisciplinary and attentive to inclusion and diversity (age, gender, and multicultural, with more than 30% of students coming from the West-African sub-region.

Amalion is an independent scholarly publisher with the mission to disseminate innovative knowledge on Africa to strengthen the understanding of Africa and its people. Amalion provides a platform for authors to express new, alternative and daring perspectives and views on people, places, events, and issues shaping our world. Amalion produces monographs, textbooks, and literary writings, primarily in English and French for scholars, students, and general readers with an interest in African Studies, the humanities, and the social sciences.

Communiqué

Dakar and Niamey, 30 September 2020

Sarraounia Prize for Young Adult Fiction Winner 2020

We are proud to announce that The Rainmakers by Paul Kisakye is the winner of the inaugural edition of the Sarraounia Prize for Young Adult Fiction 2020. The mystery story of five teenagers and a long-lost uncle in the middle of holiday boredom set in a hi-tech farm in Uganda stood out from hundreds of manuscript entries in French and in English received from across the continent.

 

Members of the jury for the 2020 edition included the publisher Antoinette Fall Correa, recently departed academic, playwright and literary critic Chaibou Dan-Inna, international publishing director and literary agent Sarah Odedina and the children’s bookseller Binta Tini.

 

This year’s winner will receive a prize of 1,000 euros at an award ceremony on 24 October 2020 and the published winning entry to be released and disseminated both in English and in French by Amalion from 30 October 2020.

 

Paul Kisakye is a Ugandan-born writer, editor and writing coach. He is the author of the Tech Explorers League, a series of sci-fi novels for children; and a non-fiction book Prodigal Love. He is an African Writers Trust Publishing Fellow and was shortlisted for the Writivism Short Story Prize in 2013 for his piece, “Emotional Roller Coaster”.

 

The Sarraounia Prize for Young Adult Fiction is founded by the Arts & Culture programme at Abdou Moumouni University, Niger and the publisher Amalion, Senegal to contribute to the availability of reading material for African young adults and to promote literature to help better understand the world of African youths. Every two years, the Sarraounia Prize will be awarded to the best unpublished fiction for young adults written in English, French or Hausa by African authors and illustrators based in Africa.

Partners

The Arts & Culture programme at Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, Niger offers courses in arts and culture from Bachelor’s to Doctorate programmes that combine theoretical knowledge, technical learning and artistic practice. The programme welcomes artists in creative residencies, offers master class sessions and seminars. For more info: https://www.facebook.com/ARTS-Culture-236248510190137/

 

Amalion is an independent scholarly publisher with the mission to disseminate innovative knowledge on Africa to strengthen the understanding of Africa and its people. Amalion provides a platform for authors to express new, alternative and daring perspectives and views on people, places, events, and issues shaping our world. Amalion produces monographs and literary writings, primarily in English and French for scholars, students, and general readers with an interest in African Studies, the humanities, and the social sciences. For more info: http://www.amalion.net

 

‘Culture at Work Africa is a consortium of eight African, European and international partners joining forces with the European Union to create new opportunities and mobilise stakeholders to promote intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity in urban and peri-urban areas in Africa as drivers for social inclusion and sustainable human development. For more info http://www.cultureatwork.net

 

Contact

For more information, visit www.sarraounia.com.

For media requests on author, the book, release date, contact us or www.amalion.net