Soyinka Prize Grows in Popularity: The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa Comes with a Medal and a $20,000 Reward, and Has Become a Symbol of Knowledge, Creativity, Courage and Justice. the Fourth Edition, Awarded This Year, Went to the South African Journalist and Writer, Sifiso Mzobe. Ivor Agyeman-Duah Reports

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AT THE DAWN OF THIS CENTURY, literary jurists in Europe and America committed what many in Africa considered an act of deliberate contempt. On assessment of the "100 best" or most influential books published in the previous century, not one was from Africa. Even Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which had sold over 6 million copies and had been translated into many major languages, did not make the list. The fury led Ali Mazrui, an elder African political scientist from Kenya, to counsel that as long as the selections were made in Europe and America, with their instinctive cannons, contempt would be Africans' fodder.

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He therefore suggested that Africa made its own selection. The continent's literary connoisseurs obliged and in consequence the popularity of the selected 100 African books of the 20th century soared. Since then, there has been an increased confidence in the institutions of literary prizes by African ist organisations in Europe and companies in Africa. …