NLNG

By Hussaina Sufyan Ahmad

Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobi at the NLNG award night at Lagos on October 30, 2021, won the $100,000 NLNG Prize for Literature, 2021.

Chairman of the Advisory Board, The Nigeria Prize for Literature & Literary Criticism, Prof Akachi Adimorah-Ezeigbo, disclosed that Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobi’s “The Son of the House” beat two other shortlisted novels, Abi Dare’s “The Girl with Louding Voice” and Obinna Udenwe’s “Colours of Hatred” to emerge the winner.

“The journey leading to the event started several months ago with the receipt of 202 novels for the Literature Prize since the genre in focus is Prose Fiction. Immediately the Panel of Judges were constituted, they swung into action and despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic, found creative ways to do their work meticulously, using a set of 11 clearly defined and approved Criteria. The Panel of judges also worked in close coordination with the Advisory Board, and the Secretariat of the Prize to produce evaluate and prune down the 202 entries to 50, then 25. From this point, they were able to produce a long list of 11 and thereafter, a shortlist of 3,” she said.

According to Adimorah-Ezeigbo, “Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobi’s “The Son of the House” was published in 2019 by Parresia Publishers. The novel presents the predicaments of two women, Nwabulu a one-time housemaid and a successful fashion designer; and Julie, an educated woman who lived through tricks, deceits and manipulation, as they meet in captivity.

Both women decide to tell each other their stories. They soon discover that their lives had crossed at different points. The subject matter of the novel is developed through the rupture of traditional plot and the mediation of a single narrative voice. It is made up of a prologue and three-part story moments, each dominated by multiple points of narration, “The Son of the House” is an experimental novel with a complex plot structure made up of the main plot and several subordinate plots that intercept.