Lotus Prize for Literature
{{Short description|International literary award}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
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). It was established in 1969 but cancelled in 1988. During this period, the Soviet Union was the sponsor of the prize.{{cite book|author=Peter J. Kalliney|title=The Aesthetic Cold War|year=2022 |publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ; Oxford|isbn=9780691230641|page=7|doi=10.1515/9780691230641-005 |url=https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691230641-005}} 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).{{cite journal|author=Maryam Fatima|title=Institutionalizing Afro-Asianism: Lotus and the (Dis) Contents of Soviet-Third World Cultural Politics|date=August 2022|volume=59
|doi=10.5325/complitstudies.59.3.0447|journal=Comparative Literature Studies|issue=3|page=448|s2cid=251852541 }}
The Bureau, as the association was initially known, was founded in Sri Lanka in 1958.{{cite web|work=Al Ahram|date=20 April 2006|number=791|url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/791/cu3.htm|archive-date=25 April 2006|access-date=26 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060425235518/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/791/cu3.htm|title=Plain Talk|author=Mursi Saad El-Din|url-status=dead}} In 1962, it moved to Cairo, with Yusuf Sibai elected general secretary. The Bureau began to publish a magazine, Lotus, a forum for short stories, poetry, book reviews, and literary essays. The inaugural Lotus Prize was given in 1969 to Alex La Guma, who was living in exile in London at the time. After the assassination of its secretary general, the Bureau moved to Beirut, then Tunisia, and finally back to Cairo. Former Arab League secretary general Lutfi El-Kholi became its secretary general and when he died, the movement began to falter.
Selected winners
{{expand list|date=November 2011}}
- 1969 Alex La Guma{{cite book|last1=Parekh|first1=Pushpa Naidu|last2=Jagne|first2=Siga Fatima|author2-link=Siga Fatima Jagne|title=Postcolonial African writers: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lvI-Xw5CJdwC&pg=PA269|year=1998|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29056-5|page=269}}
- 1969 Mahmoud Darwish[http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/mahmoud_darwish/biography Mahmoud Darwish Biography]
- 1970 Waleed Seif{{cite book|title=Lotus Prize for Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aP9YAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 November 2011|year=1973|publisher=Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers|page=194}}
- 1971 Sonomyn Udval
- 1972 Hiroshi Noma{{cite book|title=Lotus Prize for Literature
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6yhZAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 November 2011|year=1976|publisher=Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers.|page=5}}
- 1973 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o{{cite book|last1=Rollyson|first1=Carl Edmund|last2=Magill|first2=Frank Northen|title=Critical Survey of Drama: Jane Martin - Lennox Robinson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ZIYAAAAIAAJ|accessdate=25 November 2011|date=June 2003|publisher=Salem Press|isbn=978-1-58765-107-6|page=2466}}
- 1974 Yusuf Sibai{{cite book|title=Lotus Prize for Literature
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-FkvAAAAIAAJ|accessdate=25 November 2011|year=1976|publisher=Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers.|page=156}}
- 1975 Kim Chi-Ha{{cite book|last=Arana|first=R. Victoria|title=The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lblcBR7uDoYC&pg=PA244|accessdate=25 November 2011|year=2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-8160-6457-1|page=244}}
- 1975 Ghassan Kanafani{{cite book|title=Facts on File Encyclopedia of the Palestinians|last=Mattar|first=Phillip
|year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GkbzYoZtaJMC&pg=PA275|pages=275–276|isbn=9780816069866}}
- 1975 Chinua Achebe
- 1976 Faiz Ahmed Faiz{{cite book|last=Arana|first=R. Victoria|title=The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lblcBR7uDoYC&pg=PA172|year=2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-8160-6457-1|page=172}}
- 1977 Subhas Mukhopadhyay[https://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/subhasmukhopadhyay.html Subhas Mukhopadhyay, 1919-], Library of Congress
- 1978 Meja Mwangi
- 1978 Abd Alkareem Alkarmi (Abu Salma)[http://www.barghouti.com/poets/abusalma/ Abu Salma] by Barghouti
- 1979 Antonio Jacinto[http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=3848 "News and Notes"], PN Review 82, Volume 18 Number 2, November - December 1991.{{Cite web |url=http://literature.britishcouncil.org/meja-mwangi|title=Meja Mwangi|access-date=27 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120904101833/http://literature.britishcouncil.org/meja-mwangi|archive-date=4 September 2012|url-status=dead }}
- 1980 Hussein Morowah (also spelled as Mroué){{cite web|url=http://simplebooklet.com/publish.php?wpKey=3mENW39sSpaKQXjaCSslrW#wpKey=3mENW39sSpaKQXjaCSslrW#page=0 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301004632/http://simplebooklet.com/publish.php?wpKey=3mENW39sSpaKQXjaCSslrW |title=Hussein Morowah |archive-date=1 March 2014|access-date=26 October 2016|url-status=dead }}
- 1981 Bhisham Sahni[https://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/bhishamsahni.html Bhisham Sahni, 1915-], Library of Congress
- 1981 Makoto Oda[http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707300202.html The Asahi Shimbun "Oda, writer and peace activist, dies at 75" 30 July 2007]
- 1982 Ataol Behramoglu{{Cite web |url=http://www.tokyopoetry.net/poetsE.html |title=Overseas Guest Poets for TPF2008 |access-date=27 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201032811/http://www.tokyopoetry.net/poetsE.html |archive-date=1 December 2017|url-status=dead }}
- 1983 José Craveirinha[https://www.jstor.org/pss/40239003 'America' in the Poetry of José Craveirinha], English in Africa, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 2004. JSTOR
- 1986 Abdulaziz Al-Maqaleh{{Cite web|url=https://www.alowais.com/en/dr-abdullaziz-almaqaleh/|title=Dr Abdulaziz Almaqaleh|website=مؤسسة سلطان بن علي العويس الثقافية|language=en-US|access-date=30 December 2019}}
References
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Category:Awards established in 1969
Category:Awards established in 2019
Category:1969 establishments in Egypt
Category:Awards disestablished in 1982
Category:1982 disestablishments in Egypt
Category:African literary awards
Category:Asian literary awards