The Lotus Prize for Literature (also known as Lotus International Reward for Literature or The Lotus Prize for African and Asian Literature) is a literary award presented annually to African and Asian authors by the Afro-Asian Writers' Association (also known as Association of Asian and African Writers).[1] It was established in 1969 but cancelled in 1988.[2] During this period, the Soviet Union was the sponsor of the prize.[3] After this lengthy hiatus, in November 2019, it was reinstated following the renaming of the institution as the Writers' Union of Africa, Asia, and Latin American (WUAALA).[2]
The Bureau, as the association was initially known, was founded in Sri Lanka in 1958.[4] In 1962, it moved to Cairo, with Yusuf Sibai elected general secretary.[4] The Bureau began to publish a magazine, Lotus, a forum for short stories, poetry, book reviews, and literary essays.[4] The inaugural Lotus Prize was given in 1969 to Alex La Guma, who was living in exile in London at the time.[5] After the assassination of its secretary general, the Bureau moved to Beirut, then Tunisia, and finally back to Cairo.[4] Former Arab League secretary general Lutfi El-Kholi became its secretary general and when he died, the movement began to falter.[4]
Selected winners
edit- 1969 Alex La Guma[5]
- 1969 Mahmoud Darwish[6]
- 1970 Waleed Seif[7]
- 1971 Sonomyn Udval[7]
- 1972 Hiroshi Noma[8]
- 1973 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o[9]
- 1974 Yusuf Sibai[10]
- 1975 Kim Chi-Ha[1]
- 1975 Ghassan Kanafani[11]
- 1975 Chinua Achebe
- 1976 Faiz Ahmed Faiz[12]
- 1977 Subhas Mukhopadhyay[13]
- 1978 Meja Mwangi
- 1978 Abd Alkareem Alkarmi (Abu Salma)[14]
- 1979 Antonio Jacinto[15][16]
- 1980 Hussein Morowah (also spelled as Mroué)[17]
- 1981 Bhisham Sahni[18]
- 1981 Makoto Oda[19]
- 1982 Ataol Behramoglu[20]
- 1983 José Craveirinha[21]
- 1986 Abdulaziz Al-Maqaleh[22]
References
edit- ^ a b Arana, R. Victoria (2008). The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present. Infobase Publishing. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-8160-6457-1. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
- ^ a b Maryam Fatima (August 2022). "Institutionalizing Afro-Asianism: Lotus and the (Dis) Contents of Soviet-Third World Cultural Politics". Comparative Literature Studies. 59 (3): 448. doi:10.5325/complitstudies.59.3.0447. S2CID 251852541.
- ^ Peter J. Kalliney (2022). The Aesthetic Cold War. Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press. p. 7. doi:10.1515/9780691230641-005. ISBN 9780691230641.
- ^ a b c d e Mursi Saad El-Din (20 April 2006). "Plain Talk". Al Ahram. Archived from the original on 25 April 2006. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
- ^ a b Parekh, Pushpa Naidu; Jagne, Siga Fatima (1998). Postcolonial African writers: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-313-29056-5.
- ^ Mahmoud Darwish Biography
- ^ a b Lotus Prize for Literature. Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers. 1973. p. 194. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
- ^ Lotus Prize for Literature. Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers. 1976. p. 5. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
- ^ Rollyson, Carl Edmund; Magill, Frank Northen (June 2003). Critical Survey of Drama: Jane Martin - Lennox Robinson. Salem Press. p. 2466. ISBN 978-1-58765-107-6. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
- ^ Lotus Prize for Literature. Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers. 1976. p. 156. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
- ^ Mattar, Phillip (2005). Facts on File Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. pp. 275–276. ISBN 9780816069866.
- ^ Arana, R. Victoria (2008). The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present. Infobase Publishing. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-8160-6457-1.
- ^ Subhas Mukhopadhyay, 1919-, Library of Congress
- ^ Abu Salma by Barghouti
- ^ "News and Notes", PN Review 82, Volume 18 Number 2, November - December 1991.
- ^ "Meja Mwangi". Archived from the original on 4 September 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
- ^ "Hussein Morowah". Archived from the original on 1 March 2014. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
- ^ Bhisham Sahni, 1915-, Library of Congress
- ^ The Asahi Shimbun "Oda, writer and peace activist, dies at 75" 30 July 2007
- ^ "Overseas Guest Poets for TPF2008". Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
- ^ 'America' in the Poetry of José Craveirinha, English in Africa, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 2004. JSTOR
- ^ "Dr Abdulaziz Almaqaleh". مؤسسة سلطان بن علي العويس الثقافية. Retrieved 30 December 2019.