ZIMBABWEAN upcoming author Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s collection of short stories — Shadows —has been nominated for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature.
The award, launched last year, is the first pan-African prize that is only open to debut African fiction writers.
Tsholotsho-born rising author NoViolet Bulawayo won the inaugural prize with her novel We Need New Names last year.
This year’s list includes An Imperfect Blessing by Nadia Davids, Whoever Fears the Sea by Justin Fox, The Thunder that Roars by Imran Garda, Penumbra by Songeziwe Mahlangu, Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Fresh Air and other stories by Reward Nsirim, Happiness Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta and Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi.
The short-listed writers who will have 1 000 copies of their books purchased by Etisalat and go on a multi-city-sponsored tour will be announced on December 8.
The overall winner of the Etisalat Prize for Literature will receive £15 000, an engraved Montblanc Meisterstück and will attend an Etisalat-sponsored fellowship at the prestigious University of East Anglia mentored by Professor Giles Foden, author of the Last King of Scotland.
The winner will be announced at the Etisalat Prize for Literature award ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria, on February 22 2015.
Tshuma’s Shadows was published by Kwela in South Africa last year.
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According to her biography online, Shadows, a winner of the 2014 Herman Charles Bosman Prize, has been described as “an impressive and important debut”.
In 2009, she left Zimbabwe for South Africa, where she went on to study economics and finance at the University of Witwatersrand.
She won the 2009 Intwasa short story award, now known as the Yvonne Vera award for her short story You In Paradise, having been short-listed for the award the previous year.
She has been a participant in both the Caine Prize and Farafina Trust Writing Workshops (2010), as well as the Kenya Literary Week hosted by UK’s Granta Literary Magazine, Kwani Trust and the British Council (2013).
Her short fiction has been featured in anthologies which include A Life in Full and Other Stories: Caine Prize Anthology (New Internationalist, UK 2010) , Bed Book of Short Stories (Modjaji Books, South Africa 2010) and Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (‘amaBooks, Zimbabwe 2011, Parthian Books, UK 2012).
She was short-listed for the 2012 Zimbabwe achievers literature award for her short story Doctor S.
— Bookslive/novuyotshuma.wordpress.com
