Fidelity Bank's 2011 Writing Workshop
Diana Evans, Orange Prize novelist, for Fidelity Creative Writing Workshop Diana Evans, winner of the inaugural edition of the Orange Prize for Fiction has been selected along with British-Sudanese novelist, Jamal Mahjoub to teach at this year’s edition of the International Creative Writing Workshop organized by Fidelity Bank Plc. The workshop which will be anchored for the second time in two years by prize-winning novelist, Helon Habila, is scheduled for June. The choice of Evans and Mahjoub is purely in recognition of the solid achievements of the two writers whose gifts of the imagination have benefited the literary world over the years.

Diana Evans for instance is a gifted writer, whose debut effort, 26a, stirred up the attention of lovers of good fiction across the world, making the shortlist of the Guardian First Book award and the Whitebread First Novel and Commonwealth Best First Book awards. 26a also won the Betty Trask Award as well as the very first edition of the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Evans who read Media Studies at the University of Sussex is also a former dancer and journalist who has written for Marie Claire, the Independent, the Observer, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Source, Time Out, the Stage and Harper’s Bazaar. Evans has a Masters Degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia.

Like Diana Evans, Jamal Mahjoub is a Briton but he has Sudanese roots. Mahjoub who has written seven novels is a winner of Premio Mario Vargas Llosa NH de Relatos (2006), Pris e l’Astrolabe/Etonnants Voyageurs (2004), Heinemann/Guardian African Story Award (1993) and he was on the shortlist of Caine Prize in 2005.

Mahjoub who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from Sheffield University has been teaching at workshops organized by the Caine Prize for five years. His novels include; The Drift Latitudes, Nubian Indigo, Travelling with Djinns, The Carrier, In the Hour of Signs, Wings of Dust andNavigation of a Rainmaker.

His novels have been translated into over a dozen languages across the world and his short stories have appeared in a variety of publications including Transition, Moving Worlds, Notre Librarie, Wasafari, New Internationalist, The Guardian, Die zeit, Contemporary African Short Stories, Mellem Land I Land and many more.

Fidelity International Creative Writing Workshop series is an annual CSR initiative through which Fidelity Bank seeks to give back to society by investing in building the capacity of aspiring creative writers in Nigeria.

The workshop, now in its fourth season began in 2007 with multiple prize winning novelist, Chimamanda Adichie.

Entries for this year’s edition of the workshop which will hold in June, aspiring writers have been advised to send their entries to creative.writing@fidelitybankplc.com.