We are delighted to announce Bizuum Yadok’s In Defence of Leoparditude: A Case to Update an Indigenous African Literary Theory as this year’s E. E. Sule/SEVHAGE Prize for African Criticism winner. Yadok’s piece is insightful, and embodies the intellectual rigour, originality, and engagement with African literary traditions that the prize seeks to honour. His ability to weave performance analysis, literary critique, and theoretical application into a cohesive and compelling argument exemplifies quality African literary criticism.

Focusing on Nna Anyi, Is It True?, a performance poetry tribute to Chinua Achebe by Dike Chukwumerije, Yadok’s essay examines its aesthetics, style, content, and tone while framing these within the Leoparditude theory, as propounded by Professor Mohammed Al-Bishak. Yadok. The work interrogates how the Leoparditude illuminates the nuanced interplay between oral and written literary forms, underscoring the domestication of language, cultural hybridity, and folk aesthetics within African literature.

Furthermore, the essay integrates a wealth of sources and theoretical perspectives, offering a critique that is as expansive as it is incisive. By bridging the oral and written dimensions of literature, it situates Nna Anyi, Is It True? within a broader African epistemological framework, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of the work’s artistic and cultural significance.

The Runners-Up for the Prize are:

• An Appraisal of the Poetry of the Ìkòyí-ẹ̀ṣọ́ Lineage by Ademuyiwa Adewale
• Muddling the Waters: Matriarchal Failure and Patriarchal Intervention in Chika Unigwe’s The Middle Daughter And Aiwanisen Odafen’s Tomorrow I Become A Woman by Gber, Ebinehita Petrina
• The Pen-Pusher and the Gun-Wielders: Portraiture of Nigerian Military in Idris Amali’s Poetry by Onyebuchi Nwosu
• The Manifestation of the Tripartite Psyche in Unoma Azuah’s Edible Bones: A Freudian Psychoanalytic Criticism by Terese Uwuave

Congratulations to the winner, the runners-up, and many thanks to those who made the various lists, and everyone who submitted, for their contribution to advancing the discourse on African literature. It was a tight competition, and we do hope to read more from these contributors when the competition is open again.

Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi, Professor Maria Ajima, and S. Su’eddie Vershima Agema
for the judges