Abubakar Gimba Literary Award postponed

The Delta Book Club, a subsidiary of the Enugu-based Delta Publications (Nigeria) Limited and conveners of the annual ‘Coal City Book Convention,’ has postponed until March 2016 the announcement of the winning entries for theirN250, 000 Abubakar Gimba Literary Award, which was hatched earlier this year in the wake of the passage of the company’s […]

The Delta Book Club, a subsidiary of the Enugu-based Delta Publications (Nigeria) Limited and conveners of the annual ‘Coal City Book Convention,’ has postponed until March 2016 the announcement of the winning entries for theirN250, 000 Abubakar Gimba Literary Award, which was hatched earlier this year in the wake of the passage of the company’s revered author, novelist Abubakar Gimba last February. 
A release issued in Enugu by the Public Relations Officer of the book club, Mrs. Oluchi Madubueze which was made available to our reporter, stated that after consultation with the five judges commissioned to consider the books submitted, it was resolved to postpone announcement of the results in order to honour the existing protocol prevalent in most Nigerian cultures to allow 12full months for the peaceful repose of the dearly departed before normal activities around the deceased can resume in earnest. 
The event was billed to feature in Abuja on Day 3 of ‘The Coal City Book Convention,’ the 7th in the annual series, which holds on in November at the Alliance Française, Enugu.
Madubueze said the Olaudah Equiano Life-Award, which will feature at the opening ceremony, will be conferred on celebrated dermatologist and author Professor Anezi Okoro, who at 86 reigns as Africa’s oldest surviving first generation novelist, and among Nigeria’s most widely-read authors of modern contemporary fiction.
She recalled that Professor Okoro hit the big-time as a best-selling novelist in the late 1960s with such classics as ‘The Village School,’ ‘The Village Headmaster,’ ‘One Week, One Trouble,’ ‘Double Trouble.’
According to her, activities in this year’s book convention will revolve around the literary career of Prof. Okoro, with a mini-book fair and a roundtable workshop.