The Orange Book Prize in Africa launched this year recognises a novel written in French by an African writer and published between 1 January 2017 and 30 October 2018 by an African publishing house. The objective is to unearth and support new authors and promote access to culture and knowledge. Discover the jury members..
The jury for this 1st edition
The members of the jury are writers, literary critics, journalists and renowned personalities in the literary world.
Chaired by Véronique Tadjo (Côte d’Ivoire), this jury is made up of:
- Yvan Amar (France)
- Valérie Marin La Meslée (France)
- Nicolas Michel (France)
- Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Senegal)
- Wilfried N’Sondé (Congo)
- Michèle Rakotoson (Madagascar)
- Kouam Tawa (Cameroon)
- Elizabeth Tchoungui (Cameroon)
- Fawzia Zouari (Tunisia)
Various novels in the running
For this inaugural event, 59 novels are competing, which were submitted by 39 publishing houses in 16 countries: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Niger, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia.
Reading committees
Five reading committees are tasked with reading all the novels and submitting 6 books to the jury by late February. The committees are based in 5 different countries:
- L’Association des poètes et écrivains du Cameroun (Cameroon)
- Le Collectif “Abidjan Lit” (Côte d’Ivoire)
- L’Union des poètes et écrivains de Madagascar (Madagascar)
- L’Association Racines (Morocco)
- L’Association des écrivains du Sénégal (Senegal)
The six finalists will be invited to the Paris Book Fair in March to present their book on the Pavillon des Lettres d’Afrique. Find out more about the list of selected novels as well as different stages of this inaugural event on the site lecteurs.com (created by the Orange Foundation), which has nearly 230,000 members passionate about all literary genres.
The winner will receive €10,000 from the Foundation, and will benefit from a book marketing campaign.