Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch

 By Raphael Edookue, Publicity Secretary, ANA Rivers. Reading culture will not die as long as we keep doing our best to supply it the needed oxygen. Every year, Barr. Yusuf Ali, SAN, supplies some oxygen to reading culture through the Association of Nigeria Authors (ANA), the latter distributes this oxygen to different secondary schools in Nigeria via her: ANA/YUSUF ALI LITERARY AWARENESS CAMPAIGN. Yesterday (20th September, 2022), the Rivers State branch of ANA held her campaign at Olobo Premier College, Choba, Port Harcourt and schools and students smiled home with prizes in the quiz and reading competitions respectively. The schools that participated in the program also returned with hundreds of copies of literary texts donated by iconic Nigerian writers through the ANA 40,000 books program. In what was a very stiff intellectual battle among the competing schools, the quiz competition saw Methodist Comprehensive High School, D-Line, Port Harcourt, emerged winner of the prize. Th...

By Raphael Edookue (Publicity Secretary, ANA Rivers)  In what will be an amazing literary partnership for the decade, and a demonstration of literary friendliness by Prof. Nlerum Okogbule (Vice-Chancellor of Rivers State University), the Rivers state branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA Rivers) and Riv ers State University (RSU) have started a superb partnership in the area of creative writing to celebrate literary excellence while also reawakening the literary consciousness of  literary enthusiasts and budding creative writers in Rivers State, Nigeria, and beyond. This partnership has birthed what is now called: ANA/RSU International Conference on Creative Writing and the theme for this year's conference is: ELECHI AMADI, LITERATURE AND THE NIGERIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT. Other sub-themes include: Elechi Amadi's world view: Culture, Religion and Ideology, Elechi Amadi's writings and the environment, Politics and Elechi Amadi's writings, The Poetry a...

 By Humphrey Ogu (Vice-Chairman, ANA Rivers) The Rivers State branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has congratulated one of its members, Dr Obari Gomba  on his emergence as winner of the the $2000 Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) Poetry Prize for 2022 in the English Category.  The multiple awarding-winning Poet and Playwright, won the prestigious prize with his latest Book of Poems, The Lilt of a Rebel. The PAWA Poetry Prize is in three language categories: English,  French and Arabic. The Chairman,  Rivers State branch of ANA, Adi Wali, in a  congratulatory message signed on behalf of the Executive Committee and members  of the Association, expressed joy that Dr Gomba has brought home another laurel.  Gomba, who is the Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities, teaches Creative Writing and Literature in the University of Port Harcourt. He is a three-time winner of ANA Literary Prizes. His poetry and drama books have also been pre...

By Raphael Edookue (Publicity Secretary, ANA Rivers) Since 2020, members of ANA Rivers have not failed to win or make the shortlist of one sumptuous literary prize or the other. What do they drink there? How do they do it to always get it?  In 2020, as writers worked hard to balm the sore of the global Covid-19 pandemic on the foot of humanity, Mrs. Nneka Duru emerged winner of African Writers Awards (poetry category), Raphael Edookue, our publicity secretary was a finalist for same prize in 2021. In 2021 as well, Mr. Ihuoma Anaele's Imminent River made the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. This year, our multiple award-winning writer, Honorary Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa, 2021 Global South Visiting professor of the University of Oxford, and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Port Harcourt, Dr. Obari Gomba has been shortlisted in the English category of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) Poetry Prize for his newly published poetry collec...

 By Raphael Edookue (Publicity Secretary, ANA Rivers). The role of Activism in the upturning of oppressive norms across the world cannot be overemphasized. Associated with it's purest forms are names like Martin Luther King Jnr., Nelson Mandela, Ken Saro-Wiwa to mention but a few. However, over the years, Activism has been abused by the young and old through acts of personal aggrandizement so much so that it has given birth to some ugly derivatives like "cash-tivists." It is a robust approach to liberating a people from whatever noose retarding the full stretch of their necks hence, activism requires so many tools beyond ranting on radio and television, protests and vandalism. The late Ken Saro-Wiwa had relied much on writing. There will be another perspective to activism again as Th e Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation (KSF) is set to begin a new series of discussions captioned "Art and Activism",  perhaps, this initiative will among other things, considers how Art as a...

By Raphael Edookue (Publicity Secretary, ANA Rivers). In what seems to be a football team selection, the shortlist for the Nigerian Prize for literature, the most prestigious literary prize in Africa, sponsored by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) limited, features eleven best authors out of whatever number of entries received in a year. This year's prize is for prose fiction, it was supposed be administered in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  As this year's shortlist of  eleven was released by the Advisory Board of The Nigeria Prize for Literature on Saturday, 3rd July, 2021, out of the 202 entries received, the Rivers State Branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) was swallowed  by joy as it's member and former National Auditor of ANA,  Mr. Anaele Ihuoma, fondly called " Nobel " by some older members of the branch made the list with his much talked about novel: " Imminent River".  It will interest you to note th...