Grill and Read announces shortlist for inaugural prize

The Speech House International has officially announced 52 nominees in 13 categories for the first Grill and Read Annual Readers’ Awards.

The awards are in 13 categories, according to a statement by the organisers and the categories are: Book of the Year, Author of the Year; Discovery of the Year; Book Review Site of the Year; Reader’s Event of the Year; Book Club of the Year; Celebrity-Reader Motivator of the Year; Reader’s Show of the Year (Radio or TV); Book Cover of the Year; Publisher of the Year; Reader-Motivator of the Year, Reader’s Person of the Year; and Library of the Year.

Amongs the titles shortlisted for the prize are: Carnivorous City (Toni Kan); A Tiny Place Called Happiness (Bura-Bari Nwilo); After They Left (Edify Yakusak); Avenger of Blood (Franklin Fynecountry); Route 234 (travel anthology); and The Crazy Nigerian (Tonwapiri Anthony).

During the call for nominations in January, organisers said the awards were to recognise the importance of the literary community to the socio-economic development of the Nigeria, adding that: “this first-of-its-kind award ceremony shall beam the spotlight on readers and reading for pleasure and on the strength of readers in society and how this strength can be harnessed for change.”

“We received about 200 nominations from the public at the end of the nominations deadline in April, all of which were sent to our nominations panel,” says project initiator and author Abigail Anaba in a video announcement on July 28. “Our college of judges spread across a broad spectrum of Nigerians is right about now working assiduously to pick the winners in each category.”

The award ceremony will hold in Lagos, on Saturday 28 October, 2017.