On Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize

You see, in this part of the world, we scramble for so many things, just anything. Sometimes, your hustle for the scramble is worthy. Most times, it is damn pyrrhic. You should know, there is an Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize going on. It’s big. It is £1,000, a Samsung Galaxy Note/iPad and a publishing deal for the first winner. Whose mouth wouldn’t water? Etisalat will say they are also helping our literature and sickening many will believe they are doing so. I refuse to believe that. This prize is just another pigswill pretending to do our literature good. This is just a fun party, yimu if you want, #IDonSAIDit. 

I got to know of this prize through a friend on WhatsApp many days ago. And the same pity connected us both. We both wondered what democracy has just got to do with rewarding some people’s literary skills. Believe me, there are many flash fiction pieces which wouldn’t get anywhere in this prize. Many beautiful pieces we should all be talking about and engaging. They would all be voted out in no time. Such a pity. In winning this prize, damn your literariness. Everybody can text-write, simple. To win this prize, you must be ready to lick asses, eat snouts out of peoples’ noses, grin to friends and haters, put on your campaign armour and bully all contacts on your list into voting for your entry. You just must do anything to win. That is the basis for winning this prize. So, you still believe Etisalat is helping our literature? That’s hogwash thinking.  Darn it!*dodges punches*.

Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize has got this all wrong. They are leading us on our mediocre mentality. Africans love democracy always, even where and when it doesn’t apply. Many up and coming writers, savvy texters, and backyard-established hustlers had already jumped at this. Seriously, the money, the tab and the deal will help anyone’s personal economy. At least, it will do for me. But I have no interest in this. I know what it takes to weather it through in a prize like this. I had done so here before for $100 and won. However, I still appreciates NaijaStories.com for that. But really, this isn’t how you want to help African literature: inviting people to submit entries and leaving them at the mercies of skewed voting choices to scale to the Judging process. My question to Etisalat is this: wouldn’t it have been better if the Judges see to picking good entries out by longlisting and shortlisting them for the prize? Like I said earlier, this is no serious thing, it is a fun party. And any wobbly written piece with the highest number of votes gets to the Judges’ table. That’s the simple mathematics. Etisalat is promoting African Literature and we really can vote. You’d better start soliciting for votes if you had entered for the prize (sic). Today’s October 1^st. And the voting already started. You are on a Loooong thing. Hehehe. :D

Anyway, I have decided I will be reviewing five of the many entries I come across in the pack. Tell your friends who had entered for the competition to send over links to their entries and I will blog about them, in so far as they are good.

I stumbled on the Twitter conversation on Bassey’s Dressed Like A Prince yesterday. You should all go read that flash fiction piece. It is here. The writer does it good. This is one entry worth spending one’s time on. Don’t rush voting for the entry. You even shouldn’t if you don’t find it good. Bassey got me thinking at the end of the story, spinning around different what-ifs in my head. That’s really what a good flash fiction does to you. It should make you long for more in its aftertaste. Moreover, this story is gripping too:

“When I rise and limp round the bend, Godspower is kneeling by the road. His T-shirt is red, soaked in his blood. I wail; helpers come, before we get to clinic, he dies…”

Bassey captures how funny it is when death also helps us fulfill our dreams. I love this entry. Read it here

Remember, send over links to your stories and your friends’ and let me talk about them. I want to micro-review four more entries. It’s all for the love of literature.

Later. :D

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Read the concluding part HERE