The Toyin Falola story writing Prize 2021 info

 

The Toyin Falola Prize 2021 info

About the Toyin Falola Prize:

Toyin Fálọlá has spent a greater part of his career advancing the African story the African way. We’re set on the same path to reclaim the African story by blurring the boundaries between History and Literature to reveal what Maya Angelou refers to as not the glamorous facts but historical truths about Africa. Hence, The Toyin Falola Prize is LUNARIS’ way of staking a claim that the proper African history indeed can be made, especially under self-selected circumstances. Writing is impossibility turned on its head, and because of this very act, everything previously held impractical in relation to history can be reconstructed.

It is on this premise that we invite young African writers to reach to the core of Africa to make, re-make, affirm, and re-affirm the African (hi)story creatively, and into the Africanfutures.

Now in its second year, for the winner, the monetary value for the Toyin Falola Prize is worth Two Thousand US Dollars ($2000) with an invitation to the BIGSAS Festival of African and African Diasporic Literatures at Bayreuth in Germany,  while the shortlisted entries are granted the sum of One Hundred US Dollars ($100). The Prize is created in honor of the Distinguished African scholar and foremost historian, Professor Toyin Falola, whose contributions to the field of African history and culture have continued to place Africa on the map and accord it its deserved recognition. The Prize is meant to honour his endeavours and contribute to the advancement of the richness of African culture, people, myth, history, advancement and modernity.

 Submissions Guidelines : 

•The short story must be anchored on Africanfuturism: we look toward stories speculating and extrapolating African past, present, and future. 

•We are particularly concerned with how Africanfutures can be creatively (re)imagined. Creative and genre-bending submissions are highly welcomed. 

•All genres of stories are encouraged (including those hard to categorize) except erotica and chic-lit.

•Witty language and humor are especially welcomed.

•The narratives can be either factual or fiction, or the mixture of both; however, the genre must be clearly indicated by the entrant, which does not in any way influence/constrain the chances of the submission, as originality, creativity, and delivery are principal criteria.

•The writer should not be below the age of 15 nor above 35 at the time of submission.

•There is no limit to the number of words; however, we would prefer submissions within the range of 1,500 – 4,500 words.

•We do not accept more than an entry per writer/submission.

•All entrants must be African, that is, the writer should either be born in Africa or have either of the two parents as African.

•All submissions must be the original work of the entrants, previously unpublished in any form and not under consideration for publication or prize somewhere else. That means we do not accept translated works or simultaneous submission. 

Note: Published means either online in any form or on any platform.

All submissions should be sent to prize@lunaris.com.ng with the subject

 SUBMISSION FOR THE TOYIN FALOLA PRIZE.

All submissions should be attached as doc. file, named as the title of the submission (without the name of the entrant) and formatted in 1.5 line spacing, Book Antiqua theme font with font size 12. 

Note: Other file formats would not be considered for the prize.

Also, the body of the submission email should not contain the bio of the entrant, just the title of the submission, word count, genre, and contact information. Bios of the entrants would be requested upon selection. The file itself should not indicate the name or any identifying detail of the entrant.

By submitting to the prize, the entrant gives Pan-African University Press the exclusive right (or as determined by PAUP) to edit and publish their works upon selection for longlist in the ensuing anthology of the prize.

No member or relative of the Lunaris Review Team and Pan-African University Press would be considered for the Prize.

Submissions period :

January 15, 2021 – May 15, 2021

About Prof Toyin Falola:

Toyin Falola, Ph.D., is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and most recently the Kluge Chair of the Countries and Culture of the South, the Library of Congress in Washington DC. He is a celebrated author, editor, writer, poet, academic leader, organizer, teacher, Pan-Africanist, and a visionary of extraordinary grace, talent and accomplishments. An author and editor of over one hundred and sixty books on Africa and the African Diaspora, he has been invited to speak in all continents, and in over sixty countries, and widely proclaimed as Africa’s preeminent historian and one of the major intellectuals of our time. Many of his books have received awards, defined various fields, and inspired the writings of various critical works. He manages six distinguished scholarly monograph series, and serves on the board of over twenty journals.

A global icon in African Studies, Toyin Falola has received eleven honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Lincoln University, Doctor of Humanities from Monmouth University, Doctor of Humane Letters from City University of New York, Staten Island, D. Litt. from Lead City University, D. Litt. Adekunle Ajasin University, D. ED. from Tai Solarin University of Education (Nigeria), D. Litt. from the University of Jos, D. Litt. from Redeemer’s University, D. Litt from Olabisi Onabanjo University, D. Litt. from Caleb University, and D. Litt. from McPherson University.

His lifetime career awards include the Nigerian Diaspora Academic Prize, the Cheikh Anta Diop Award, the Amistad Award, and the SIRAS Award for Outstanding Contribution to African Studies, Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria, and The Distinguished Africanist Award.

An annual international conference has been named after him, TOFAC (Toyin Falola Annual Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora) which meets every July in a major African university. The Association of Third World Studies has named its annual best book award after him as the Toyin Falola Prize for the best book on Africa. His memoir, A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt, captures his childhood, while another memoir, Counting the Tiger’s Teeth, covers his years as a teenager.

For his contributions to the study of Africa, his students and colleagues have presented him with a set of five Festschriften, two edited by Adebayo Oyebade, The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola and The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, one by Akin Ogundiran, Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, and yet another by Nana Amposah, Beyond the Boundaries: Toyin Falola and the Art of Genre-Bending.Toyin Falola: The Man, Mask and Muse presents bio-critical studies of his works in over a thousand pages. Two full-length books by Abdul Bangura examine his contributions to pedagogy: Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies; and Falolaism: The Epistemologies and Methodologies of Africana Knowledge.

Professor Falola has received various awards and honors in various parts of the world. At the University of Texas at Austin, he received the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, The Texas Exes Teaching Award, the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, and the Career Research Excellence Award. His life time career awards are over two dozens, including three Yoruba chieftain titles, most notably the Bobapitan of Ibadanland.

He served as the Chair of the ASA Herskovits Prize for the best book on Africa, the chair of the Martin Klein Book prize for the best book on African history (American Historical Association), and committee member of the Joel Gregory Prize for the Canadian Association of African Studies. He once served as the Vice President of the International Scientific Committee, UNESCO Slave Route Project, President of the African Studies Association and President of the Nigerian Studies Association