EC Osondu wins "African Booker"

The £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, called the African Booker, was awarded to EC Osondu for his short story "Waiting," a sparse and resonant tale about a young boy in a refugee camp.

Osondu, a Nigerian native who now lives in the United States, published the story in Guernicamag.com in October, 2008. In addition to the prize money, he will receive a one-month residency at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, US, with all expenses paid.

The prize, in its tenth year, recognizes the best English-language short story written by an African author. Patrons of the award include Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, and Wole Soyinka.

Adichie visits Dallas

Writing for the Dallas Morning News, Edward Nawotka was able to interview author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who was in Dallas promoting her new book, The Thing Around Your Neck, a collection of short stories about life in Nigeria during times of war and of peace.

"In the West we have constructed a narrative where the wars and poverty are meaningless, with no real political or historical context, which suggests misery is this atavistic thing," she said, "But what gets forgotten is at the same time all this is happening, people are falling in love, people are still living their lives. That is what I'm trying to do with my fiction, to tell the stories with a bit of complexity, with balance. There needs to be balance."

Adichie currently lives in the Washington, DC Metro area and divides her time between Lagos and Maryland.

Book Review: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck

Donna Bailey Nurse of The Star reviews the latest short story collection from Orange Broadbrand Prize-winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck:

This superior collection accentuates the intellect, insight and blistering honesty that have made Adichie a prominent writer of her generation. Many of the stories in The Thing Around Your Neck contemplate the legacy of Nigerian independence: crime, political corruption, poverty and violence. Others interrogate the gender inequities that restrict the spirit of Nigerian women.

The result is a book impossible to put down. I tore through it like wildfire.

The collection debuts on June 16 and has received glowing advance reviews. Her previous novel Half of a Yellow Sun hauntingly and vividly depicted the Biafran War of the 1960's.