Three months for Peer Gynt Literary Awards manuscripts

The Malawi Writers Union (Mawu) has said it will take three months before publishing three manuscripts that won this year’s Peer Gynt Literary Award.

Mawu president Sambalikagwa Mvona said this last week when he commented on the progress on the manuscripts.

Three manuscripts, Azotus by Shadreck Chikoti, Evil Assignment by Ananiya Ponje and Pilgrims Together by Jonathan Mbuna claimed the top three positions in the competition.

However, during the awards presentation ceremony held at Latitude 13 Degree Hotel in Lilongwe recently, chief judge James Ng’ombe said the competition exposed the need for Malawian writers to improve.

He said the submissions were of low standard and revealed that they would engage a number of editors to improve them before they are published into novels.

“The manuscripts are being worked on by first editors and we expect to get them back shortly. We will later on send them to the second set of editors before an external editor looks at them. We expect to have final copies in three months time from now,” said Mvona.

He said the first editors are working on the plot, style and imagination and are expected to make the stories attractive and marketable.

He said the second set of editors will work on language to make them readable to all people across the globe while the external editor will focus on improving them to suit international standards.

This year’s Peer Gynt Literary Award was sponsored by the Norwegian embassy and it attracted 52 entrances. After several scrutinies with focus on originality, language, imagination, style, creativity, suspense and relevance of stories by different set of judges, 12 qualified for the finals and six were awarded.

According to Mvona, there are plans to publish manuscripts on position four to six, but they will wait for the publication of the first set and availability funds.