June is Caribbean-American Heritage Month in the US, here are some initiatives in the Caribbean that you might want to check out. June is Caribbean-American Heritage Month in the United States, as well as a special one across the Caribbean. The region, which hosts many people of African descent, has produced some of the most important literature for decades. Winners of major international prizes like the Nobel Prize in Literature (V.S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott), Booker Prize (Marlon James), and many others call it home. Here we shine a light on a few literary activities our brethren and sistren in…

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse’s memoir Le Convoi won at the Prix France Televisions 2024 in Paris, France on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, Prix France Televisions is an annual literary award rewarding authors of works published in French in recent literary news in both fiction and nonfiction since 1995. Previous winners have included Nathacha Appanah, Ali Zamir, Wassyla Tamzali, and Yasmina Khadra. The winners for 2024 were selected by a jury of 22 readers from the four corners of France, following debates moderated by Augustin Trapenard, president of the France Télévisions literary prizes. In nonfiction, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse’s memoir Le Convoi (Flammarion) was declared the winner. Speaking…

Yepoka Yeebo wins UK’s Jhalak Prize 2024

Hemley Boum wins Prix littéraire des Sciences Po 2024.

The programme for NBO LitFest 2024, brought to you by Book Bunk and the Hay Festival Global, running in Nairobi, Kenya from June 27 – 30 has been announced. In 2021 Nairobi-based Book Bunk hosted NBO LitFest, a virtual festival anchored in Nairobi’s public libraries with stories and ideas emerging from Nairobi and other regional spaces. Designed as a celebration of public libraries as spaces for art, culture, and knowledge production, it featured virtual concerts, live storytelling, and writers in conversation. It had another successful edition in 2023. In March, NBO LitFest organisers Book Bunk announced they had signed a partnership with Hay…

Tananarive Due and Jordan Peele won in their categories at the Bram Stoker Awards 2024 in San Diego, California, USA, on June 3, 2024. Abraham “Bram” Stoker (1847 – 1912) was an Irish author best known for writing the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. In 1987, the Horror Writers Association of the USA set up the Bram Stoker Award in recognition of “superior achievement” in dark fantasy and horror writing. Some previous winners have been George R. R. Martin, J. K. Rowling, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, and Christopher Lee. The winners for the 2024 edition were announced at the…

Conceição Evaristo is the opening act at Festival da Palavra de Curitiba 2024 which runs in Curitiba, Brazil from June 16 – 22, 2024. The festival theme is “Resistance.” Festival da Palavra de Curitiba (English: Curitiba Word Festival) was first hosted in the Brazilian city of Curitiba in 2023. That edition ran from September 27 to October 1 bringing together national and foreign guests to explore the richness and intersections of the word in various manifestations: literature, dance, music, theatre, activism, and more. Some of the standout guests of the one hundred who featured were Mozambican Paulina Chiziane, the first…

The CANEX Prize for Publishing in Africa is a part of the CANEX Book Factory. The CANEX Book Factory is an annual programme of events of the Creative Africa Nexus initiative of African Export – Import Bank (Afreximbank) that is designed to spotlight and elevate the African book value chain through the prize, a Pan-African writing workshop, and an e-newsletter highlighting African literature.  The panel of judges for the prize has been revealed. It is chaired by Nigerian author, Dr. Wale Okediran, also featuring Ivorian writer and essayist, Edwige-Renée Dro, along with Egyptian poet, novelist and journalist, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid. Dr. Wale Okediran…

The nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards 2023 were announced on Friday, June 7, 2024. Here are the writers of African descent among them. Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Her writing career spanned over two decades, during which she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories. The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named in recognition of her legacy in writing since 2007. They celebrate outstanding achievements in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and dark fantasy. The nominees for 2023 announced on Friday are; Novel…