It’s a page-turner for lovers of African literature. After six editions, the Orange foundation is putting an end to the Orange Book Prize in Africa (POLA), which rewarded authors and their publishers on the continent. In six years, POLA had become a reference. Furthermore, the foundation is also abandoning its French prize, created in 2009. This withdrawal from the literary sphere is not likely to cause a stir.
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Both in form and substance, the Orange Foundation’s decision surprised the members of the POLA jury. The prize disappears without the foundation having taken the trouble to first inform the members of the jury, criticizes one of them, and even less the multiple local committees which, in African countries French speakingcarried out the essential work of selecting the works.
It took outraged exchanges of emails between the jury, chaired by the Ivorian Véronique Tadjoand the new general delegate of the Orange foundation, Hafida Genfound, so that she takes her pen to justify her decision. The foundation now wishes to refocus on education in schools through associations.
The end of the only African prize with a decolonial spirit
It’s her choice, but she abandons the only African prize with a decolonial spirit, since since 2019 it has rewarded an author and a publishing house from the continent. A prize that has become, in just a few years, as essential as its French version, which also disappears after 16 editions. The POLA had notably highlighted the Cameroonian author Djaïli Amadou Amalwho subsequently won the Goncourt des lycéens in France.
Also readThe Orange African Book Prize awarded to the novel “The Psychoanalyst of Brazzaville” by Congolese Dibakana Mankessi