The Revisiting Modernization Short Story Competition

GHANA STUDIES / Volumes 12–13 ISSN 1536-5514 / E-ISSN 2333-7168© 2011 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 273 THE REVISITING MODERNIZATION SHORT STORY COMPETITION YABA BADOE When I was asked to help organise a Short Story Competition as part of the Revisiting Modernization Conference, I leapt at the opportunity, even though I didn’t have a clear idea of what exactly would be involved. To begin with, there was talk of four or five illustrious literary judges to select a winner, under thirty years of age, who would dazzle us with a story that addressed the project of modernization in Ghana “through the lived experiences of nation-building and citizenship.” Possible subjects might include rites of passage (such as funerals, confirmations, weddings, rituals and confirmations), differences in generational attitudes, challenges to sexuality and gender, large scale modernization projects and the impact of mobility and new forms of technology, such as telephone, radio and cinema on daily life. The competition would be open to young, unpublished writers living in Ghana. And the reward for the best story? $700 in cash, and $100 worth of books. All well and good. Yet as a middle-aged, about to be published “novelist,” I found myself mulling over just how youthful, young in a Ghanaian context was supposed be. Under twenty-five? Around thirty-five? Below forty? I discussed the practicalities of organising the competition over a drink at Shangri-la hotel with the writer, Ama Ata Aidoo, and her daughter , Kinna Likimani. They have established the Mbassem Foundation, a mother-­ and-daughter-run organisation that encourages and develops Ghanaian women’s writing. They persuaded me that to encourage creative writing in an environment where there are so many pressing demands on an artist’s time, it was advisable to open the competition to potential writers , whatever their age. After all, hadn’t a recent winner of the prestigious Noma Award for a book published in Africa, been a debut writer well in his sixties? And as for inviting so many judges to select a winner, the fewer the 274 Ghana Studies • volumes 12–13 • 2011 better! Didn’t I know that literary judges are notorious for failing to agree on anything? I relayed these suggestions to the conference organisers. And so it was that the Short Story Competition was thrown open to unpublished writers resident in Ghana, irrespective of age. With the help of friends and colleagues the competition was publicised at the University of Ghana: on campus radio, on the university website, and on the notice boards of the English Department and the Institute of African Studies. Before long it was advertised at Cape Coast University, and then, at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. Thanks to Mbassem, a notice for the competition was displayed on the fiction page of The Daily Graphic. The closing date for entries was 15 December 2008. In early November, the first submission to the competition, landed on my desk. The writer, still a teenager, thanked her family, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for having guided her through her journey in life. She had already written two novels and hoped that the judges of the competition would look kindly on her latest offering. I read the story avidly, but since it exceeded the word limit of 5,000 by at least 15,000, and would be better described as a novella than a short story, I put it to one side. By mid-November, fliers for the competition had been distributed to cultural centres throughout Accra: the Goethe Institute, the British Council and the Alliance Frangaise. Fliers were strewn around shops at the Accra Mall and in Accra secondary schools, where I’m told they were quickly transformed into aeroplanes. On 15 December 2008, five submissions were presented to me, while I was perched in my office at the Institute, by eager competitors. One was an article about mining in Ghana, another, a treatise on a dam. None of the submissions could be described as short stories. Where had we gone wrong, I wondered. In setting out our stall to attract fragments of fiction to complement the themes...