REPORT OF THE PANEL OF JUDGES FOR THE NIGERIA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE, 2007 EDITION (CHILDREN’S LITERATURE)

The first cycle of four years of the NLNG-sponsored Nigeria Prize for Literature has now been completed with the selection of a short list of three potential winners of the prize. This year’s competition is quite different from the earlier three because it is not restricted to any of the major genres of literature, like the earlier competitions; rather, all the genres of children’s literature are admissible. It is also different in the sense that although virtually all its authors are adults, it is written almost exclusively for an audience of young people, so that adults may well experience that guilty feeling of nostalgia anytime they are caught eavesdropping at childhood story-telling sessions. Yet not many adults can resist the lure of this enchanted world of wonder and innocence in which one may wander for ever. Indeed the best of children’s literature quite often evolve into literature for the edification of adult readers. How many parents or guardians would not gladly sit up to read a bedtime story to their children or wards, thereby re-enacting their own childhood story telling sessions a generation ago when they also listened to story telling by their own parents, neighbours and extended family members. Stories are, of course, central to the acculturation of young people. Their powerful effect on the impressionistic minds of young people makes them an especially powerful instrument for the shaping of character and the development of a sense of morality and fair play, as well as bridging the separate worlds of children and adults. We dare to add that indeed a competition on children’s literature is of far greater value for the strengthening of family values and for laying the future foundation for nation building than competitions for adult literature. But this utilitarian view of literature for the young is subordinate to its purely imaginative quality; for literature of little value without this entertaining value, this product of the imagination. This competition is important and justifiable for this reason alone.
 
The organizers of this year’s competition began by seeking an answer to the question, what is children’s literature? The judges have adopted a set of simple criteria for their own guidance. Children’s literature may or may not be written by children, although it goes without saying that adults will be its main producers. Its content and form will reflect the social experience, level of psychological maturity and linguistic ability of its primary audience rather than that of its author, although this criterion may not apply to the scope and depth of the moral and narrative control of the material. There will be many levels of the social, psychological and linguistic levels of complexity and sophistication to be encountered in the literature. This makes it important to acknowledge that children’s literature may not be taken as a single of uniform type of material, rather, there will be different levels, reflecting different age groups, and a broad range of these levels include: literature for young adults and adolescents, literature for early teenage years, pre-teen literature and literature for children up to eight years old.
 
The second set of criteria that the judges took into account includes the quality of the content and the material production of the entries. Although no restrictions on subject matter were published when entries were invited, the judges expected that author’s will impose their own censorship on matters of morality and ethics. The quality of language remains a key criterion in these competitions, and it received even greater attention and rating in this year’s competition because children are more vulnerable than adults to undesirable effects of stylistic and grammatical flaws in the work, since they are subconsciously regarded as the models in these matters. The production quality of this literature is of utmost importance. The quality of the illustrations and the quality of the paper and print are important for the success of the text. [[The story telling quality and the ability to attract and hold the attention of young readers are among the most highly rated qualities expected in children’s literature]].
 
At the end of the closing date for this competition, the Literature Committee received 70 entries. Eight of these were disqualified for non compliance with the guidelines for entries, including those of residency, production and genre. If I may remind my audience, the residency requirement, which the organizers insisted on from the start of this competition was meant not only to encourage writers who live and work within the Nigerian environment, it was also meant to stimulate the growth of a literary culture in the country. The list of 62 was initially reduced to 10 entries, before a final short list of three was published in the national press. Once again, I present the 3 short listed entries in strictly alphabetical order.
 
Adimora-Ezeigbo’s My Cousin, Sammy, is a novel about the appearance of a teenage orphan from the rural areas at the home of his city-dwelling relatives – a middle class family with middle class prejudices and pretensions. Ezeigbo has chosen one of the most representative themes of contemporary African fiction. The regular flow of rural migrants into African cities is as old as the emergence of cities in Africa . Many writers of adult literature have been attracted to this theme, not only because the migration from rural areas to urban centres is a key agent of social transformation but also because the considerable social tensions that it produces often makes exciting story-telling. In adopting as a backdrop to her story, this contrast between the traditions of provincial life and the new lifestyle of city dwellers, Ezeigbo is consciously exploiting and extending a rich tradition of fiction of the modern city as a centre for social change by exploring the the psychological tensions inherent in the experience. What Ezeigbo brings to this well-worked theme is its presentation from the point of view of a sensitive year old girl whose also is capable of bringing out the delicately poised but powerful family tensions that threaten the well-being of her family. Ezeigbo’s handling of the story of domestic conflict and its resolution through the sheer selfless love and fellow feeling of an eleven year old girl is sustained by skilful storytelling. She is in complete control of her medium in this novel for children in their early teenage years. At no point does the narrative move beyond the point of view of the child whose story this is. The complexities of the adult world and its contrast with the relatively limited experiences of childhood are accommodated and contained within the child’s linguistic capabilities and psychological insights. Although this novel is carefully kept at the level of the world view of its young audience, it is a reliable picture of aspects of middle class family life in some of our cities in addition to giving the reader a completely convincing picture the nature and effect of adult repression on the emotional and psychological growth of adolescents.  It is for this skilful control of the narrative medium that the judges have picked My Cousin, Sammy as one of the three contenders for the Literature Prize.

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