The 17th CORA-Nigeria Prize for Literature Book Party for poets on the longlist for the 2026 edition of the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature (NLP), endowed and promoted by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG holds as follows:
https://www.digital.zenithbank.com/ZEQ/ZEQ-jan-2026/index.html#p=1Date: Sunday August 2, 2026
Venue: OnSite – Shell Zenith Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos
Virtual – Meeting ID – 897 1626 8311 | Passcode – CORA2026
Time: 1pm (prompt).
NB: The event will also accommodate virtual guests via Zoom; and will be broadcast live on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
The genre in focus is poetry. The 11 poets on the longlist were drawn from 223 entries received for this year’s competition. In alphabetical order, the books on the longlist for the 2026 NPL are:
- Adult Love, by Tanure Ojaide
- Bakandamiya: An Elegy, by Saddiq Dzukogi
- Black Passport, by Paul Akpomuje
- 2000 Blacks, by Ajibola Tolase
- Ceremony for The Nameless, by Theresa Lola
- Corpus: Animistic Verses, by Ayo Oyeku
- Floral’s Love Colony, by Tares Oburumu
- The Origin of Wounds, by Rasaq Malik Gbolahan
- The Years of Blood, by Adedayo Agarau
- Unbind Me Now, by James Ugwu Eze
- Why Does God Need a Gun?, by Ogaga Ifowodo
The Book Party, a literary feast of ideas and life, celebrates the authors and their works for emerging as the very best in the country. It promises to be an afternoon of literary feasting, featuring performances, wining and dining.
About the NPL: The Nigeria Prize for Literature was inaugurated in 2004 with $20,000 Prix=ze money. Sponsored by the Nigeria LNG Limited, the prize money was later raised to $50,000 and now, it is $100,000 – the biggest of its kind in Africa.
About the Book Party: The CORA-Nigeria Prize for Literature Book Party, a special iteration of the CORA Book Party launched in 1996 — was initiated after a review of the first five years of the esteemed Prize project. The idea is to create a platform through which the public gets to engage with the works considered the best of the usually, over 200 entries per edition of the NPL.
About CORA: CORA is a group consisting of artistes, art enthusiasts, art promoters and art writers committed to the flowering of all the contemporary arts of the Nigerian, and African people. It has organised, every year since 1999, the Lagos Book & Art Festival, (LABAF), critically described as ‘the biggest Culture picnic on the African continent.’ The 28th edition holds November 16-22 with theme: “The WORKOVER Starts, NOW”.
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