Goodreads has announced the nominations for the 2022 edition of its awards and three African authors are on it. They are Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi, Sudanese poet Safia Elhillo, and Somali poet Warsan Shire.
The Goodreads Choice Awards was launched in 2009. Winners are decided through a vote by readers and users of Goodreads.
The opening round of voting will take place from Nov. 15-27. The final round of voting will run through Nov. 29 – Dec. 4. The winners will be announced on Dec 8.
Akwaeke Emezi is nominated in the category of “Romance” for their latest novel You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, which was published in early 2022 to critical acclaim, and made news when its film rights were secured by Michael B. Jordan’s Production company in what was described as one of the juiciest deals of the year. The novel follows “a young artist struggling to overcome the loss of an old love, while inviting a new one in.”
Vote HERE for Emezi.
Salfia Elhillo is nominated in the category of “Poetry” for her third poetry collection Girls That Never Die. The collection, which has been praised for pushing the boundaries of contemporary poetry draws from Elhillo’s own personal experience and “explores the trials and tribulations of Muslim women’s lives, from shame to dangers experienced.”
Vote HERE for Elhillo.
Warsan Shire is equally nominated in the category of poetry for her latest collection Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head. The highly anticipated collection evoke themes of “migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience. The poems are layered with images of “fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense…full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.” The result is what, in the publisher’s note, is called “polychrome life.”
Vote HERE for Shire.
Good luck to all three writers! Please vote for them using the above links.
COMMENTS -
Reader Interactions