Teju Cole is a Nigerian writer, art historian and a street photographer, who currently lives in the United States. Recently, Teju was named this year’s winner of Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award which fetched him a $10,000 prize. SEYI GESINDE reports.
Nigerian author, Teju Cole has won this year’s Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a “distinguished” first novel, entitled “Open City.”
This award was presented to Teju by Patrick Hemingway, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Ernest Hemingway at an event which held at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, United States.
Andre Dubus III, a renowned author, who wrote the book: “House of Sand and Fog,” and “Townie,” was the keynote speaker at the ceremony.
Teju, whose story fetched him the award with a $10,000 prize is also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award.
Born in the United States in 1975 to Nigerian parents, Teju was raised in Nigeria, but later left the country for a sojourn abroad. He now lives in Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York City in the United States.
The 36-year old Nigerian, is the author of two books, a novella, “Every Day is for the Thief,” and a novel, “Open City,” which won him the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York City Book Award for Fiction, and the Rosenthal Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Teju was also shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award.
He is a contributor to numerous foreign tabloids and magazines, among which are: the New York Times, Qarrtsiluni, Chimurenga, the New Yorker, Transition, Tin House and A Public Space.
At present, he is working on a book-length non-fiction narrative of Lagos, and on Small Fates.
The Hemingway award was founded in 1976 by Mary Hemingway, widow of the Nobel laureate.
Teju’s award-winning book was written in 2011 and the novel captures the story of a Nigerian immigrant, Julius, described as “a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City,” who broke up with his girlfriend and spent most of his time “dreamily walking around Manhattan.”
Open City primarily focuses on Julius’ “inner thoughts as he rambles throughout the city, painting scenes of both what occurs around him and past events that he can’t help but dwell on.”
It was noted that “for reasons not altogether clear, Julius’ walks turn into worldwide travel, and he spends a number of weeks in Belgium, where he had an unplanned one-night stand and made some interesting friends.
Along the way, he met many people and often had long discussions with them about philosophy and politics.
The book has been well-critiqued by season authors in international journals.
The New Yorker likened Teju’s writing to that of Joseph O’Neill and Zadie Smith, both seasoned authors, while the New York Times analysing the book said “the novel’s importance lies in its honesty.”
The Independent sees Open City as “hypnotic, transfixing and a striking debut for Cole,” while Time analysts, in their submission described Teju’s book, Open City as a “profoundly original work, intellectually stimulating and possessing of a style both engaging and seductive.”
