Nigeria’s most innovative and fastest growing telecommunications services company, Etisalat, has announced the longlist for the 2015 Etisalat Prize for Literature. The announcement, made yesterday in a statement in Lagos, said that the nine books on this year’s longlist were chosen from a field of over 100 titles submitted from across the continent.

The longlist for the 2015 Etisalat Prize for Literature:

*Ifeoluwapo Adeniyi (Nigeria), On the Bank of the River

*Penny Busetto (South Africa), The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself

*Z P Dala (South Africa), What About Meera

*Kurt Ellis (South Africa), By Any Means

*Paula Marais (South Africa), Shadow Self

*Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo), Tram 83

*Masande Ntshanga (South Africa), The Reactive

*Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), The Fishermen

*Rehana Rossouw (South Africa), What Will People Say?

The longlist was selected by an esteemed three-member judging panel: Professor Ato Quayson, Professor of English and inaugural Director of the Centre for Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto (Chair of Judges); Molara Wood, writer, journalist, critic and editor; and Zukiswa Wanner, author of Men of the South and London Cape Town Joburg.

•Photo shows Ifeoluwapo Adeniyi displaying her nominated book, On the Bank of the River.

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