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 on Sunday August 2, 2026 at the Shell Zenith Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.
Those who wish to join virtually can do so via zoom, with Meeting ID – 897 1626 8311 | Passcode – CORA2026
Time is 1pm (prompt).
A statement from the organisers said the event 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 the competition this year.
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.
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.
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.
