United States of America (USA) based Physician, Dr. Nelson Aluya, has called on Nigerians wherever they are and friends of the literary arts world over to buy and support books written by Nigerian authors.
Dr. Aluya, who is also the President of the Nigerian American Public Affairs Committee (NAPAC), said this in reaction to the news of the release of the short list of three novels for the NLNG’s The Nigerian Prize for Literature last Friday.
Three novels, LOUDING VOICE by Abi Dare, THE SON OF THE HOUSE by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia and COLOURS OF HATRED by Obinna Udenwe scaled through to the finals of the contest out of a long list of 11 novels.
The winner of the Prize will receive $100,000 (about N50 million). NLNG is Nigeria’s major liquified natural gas company which also has a similar Prize for Science. The Literature Prize rotates annually between the different genres of Literature – Novel, Drama, Poetry and Children’s Literature.
Dr. Aluya, an Internal Medicine Specialist in Newark, New Jersey, who is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, Nigeria, stressed that patronage of the literary works of Nigerian and African authors would encourage the authors to write more books and would project the literary prowess of authors from the motherland.
“We must support our literary giants and exalt up and coming ones who by all standards are just as good as any in the global writers’ space,” he insisted.
He also commended the NLNG for instituting the Prize and urged such other companies to emulate them and do more to encourage the arts in the country and the continent.
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