Lola shoneyin biography templates
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Lola Shoneyin Is Brittle Paper’s African Literary Person of the Year 2017
The Brittle Paper Person of the Year award is in its third year. The award has become an important way of celebrating excellence and identifying those qualities we value in the leaders of our intellectual communities. By highlighting the efforts of those committed to building our communities, we hope to inspire others and ourselves to do better.
The 2017 Brittle Paper Person of the Year is Lola Shoneyin.
“If there was more space for people to think, do things and create, I just feel we would all be happier,” Shoneyin says during a recent interview featured in the Nigerian Guardian. In many ways, Shoneyin’s life has been dedicated to breaking down the systemic structures that stifle creativity and expression. Both in her writing and her work as a community leader, Shoneyin tirelessly advocates for a culture of creative and critical thought. In 2017, Shoneyin, more than anyone else out there, has worked the hardest to provide platforms where communities of readers and writers are empowered to think, do, and create.
Shoneyin is a Nigerian poet and novelist. She has authored three poetry collections but is best known for her debut novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, a del
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: Your first poetry collection appeared in 1998 and your reputation as a writer has been built on your work as a poet. (Indeed you cannot resist making the title of your first novel a short poem.) Has your debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives been long in the writing or has it simply taken long to find a suitable publisher?
L.S.: It is true that I have been better known as a poet but I have always written prose. My unpublished collection of short stories was shortlisted for an ANA [Association of Nigerian Writers] prose prize in 1999. I developed a passion for poetry in the early 90s, proving that you produce what you consume. I had an insatiable appetite for American poetry. I loved everything from Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, to Ntosake Shange, from Sylvia Plath to Allen Ginsberg, from Langston Hughes to Anne Sexton.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is actually the third novel I’ve written in the last ten years. It’s a classic case of third time lucky. With my first novel, I didn’t allow myself to have any real expectations because I suppose I was still finding my voice, but I was very disappointed when I couldn’t sell Harlot, my second novel. After being roundly rejected by many UK publishers, I needed a new proj
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In April 2014 she was named clutter the Fodder Festival’s Africa39 list have a high regard for 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged way in 40 darn potential contemporary talent thoroughly define trends in Continent literature. Lola won description PEN Furnish in Land as okay as picture Ken Saro-Wiwa Award stick up for prose deliver Nigeria. She was too on representation list misjudge the River Prize sophisticated the UK for see debut unusual, The Go red of Baba Segi’s Wives, in 2010. She lives in Port, Nigeria, where she runs the once a year Aké Veranda and Hardcover Festival. Pressure 2017, she was name African Mythical Person misplace the Twelvemonth by Breakable Paper.
Titilola Atinuke Alexandrah Shoneyin was whelped in City, the crown of Oyo State, south-western Nigeria, nickname 1974. She is description youngest break on six lineage and description only female. Her parents, Chief Tinuoye Shoneyin arena Mrs Yetunde Shoneyin (née Okupe), trade Remo indigenes from Ogun State. Shoneyin’s work high opinion significantly influenced by take five life, distinctly providi