The French author Fabienne Kanor wins the 2022 Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize for her second novel Humus, a fictional account of the famous anecdote of “a captain of a slave ship which reported that fourteen women jumped into the sea rather than proceed into slavery.”

The Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, first awarded in 2005, is named in honor of the celebrated Ghanaian novelist and short-story writer, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Margaret Snyder, the founding Director of UNIFEM. Administered by the Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association, the $500 award is conferred on an outstanding book that prioritizes African women’s experiences. It equally “seeks to acknowledge the excellence of contemporary scholarship being produced by women about African women.”

The prize is alternately awarded annually for the best scholarly book, or for the best creative work.

Kanor’s winning novel was written after a sojourn in Benin. It uses an interconnected narrative style to trace the trajectory of the lives of the captured women from the time of their captivity, in Ghana, on the slave ship to Haiti, and their subsequent lives.

The novel was first published, in French, by Gallimard (2006). The English edition was published in 2020 by the University of Virginia Press.

The runner-ups for the 2022 prize were Véronique Tadjo for In the Company of Men (Other Press, 2021), and Tjawangwa Dema’s for An/Other Pastoral (No Bindings Ltd., 2022).

Congratulations to Fabienne Kanor!

Go here for more details.