Nigerian author nominated for First Book Award

Nigeria’s Jumoke Verissimo has been nominated for the First Book Award for her debut novel, ‘A Small Silence’.

‘A Small Silence’ tells the story of Prof, an activist and retired academic, who has spent ten years in prison and resolves to live a life of solitude until a knock at the door changes everything.

Verissimo, until recently, was known as a poet who has published two books, ‘I Am Memory’, which won the Carlos Idzia Ahmad Prize’s First Prize for a first book of poetry, and the Second Prize for the Anthony Agbo Prize first book of poetry, and ‘The Birth of Illusion’, which was shortlisted for the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize and longlisted for the Nigerian Prize for Literature. Her work has been translated into Norwegian, French, Chinese, Japanese and Macedonian.

The First Book Award “celebrates the wealth of new fiction featured in the Edinburgh International Book festival programme each year. The winner of the prize is selected through a voting process by readers.”