Helon Habila tours 5 states in November

The following is a statement from Jerry Adeswo, publicist for Cassava Republic Press, Abuja, on the visit to Nigeria by our own Helon Habila, author of Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time.

19th October 2007

Press release

Helon Habila tours 5 states in November

Caine Prize winner Helon Habila is due in Nigeria for a six-city reading tour from the 17th to 26th of November 2007. The tour is expected to take Habila to Lagos, Abuja, Nassarawa, Jos and Gombe. It will feature readings from Nigerian editions of his latest book, Measuring Time, and the award-winning Waiting for an Angel.

Helon Habila was the first Nigerian writer to gain international recognition after the Abacha regime and is the leading figure in the new crop of Nigerian writers that have been feted and celebrated all over the world. Since the launch of his latest book Measuring Time to critical acclaim in February this year, Habila has embarked on a world tour, reading to packed audiences at all the major literary festivals. Helon has chosen to end his tour in Nigeria in order to celebrate his 40th birthday in the land that gave birth to his creativity and is the subject of all his writing to date.

The Nigerian tour, organised by Habila’s Nigerian publishers Cassava Republic Press will include public book signings, private reading, writing workshops and seminars with secondary school students in FCT and Gombe. The reading tour will be supported by poets and singers.

The itinerary for the tour is as follows:

Lagos: 17th November 2007 NuMetro Silverbird Gallaria, Victoria Island, 5.30pm

Abuja: 21st November 2007 NuMetro, Ceddi Plaza 6pm

Nassawara: 21st November 2007 Nassawara State University 11.am

Jos: 22nd November 2007, University of Jos, 10.30am

Gombe: 23rd November 2007 Gombe State University 11.00am

Please, find attached other relevant materials about the Michael Caine Prize for African Writing, Cassava Republic Press and Helon Habila and his writings.

Call Jerry Adeswo 08034530786, 08052771123 Cassava Republic Press Publicist


* Helon Habila was born in Kaltungo, Gombe State. He studied literature at Uni. Jos and graduated in 1995. He taught at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, before moving to Lagos to work as a journalist. In Lagos he wrote his first novel, Waiting for an Angel, which won the Caine Prize in 2001. In 2002 he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing.

His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003, MUSON Poetry Prize 2000. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York, he was also the William B. Quarton fellow in 2004 at the University of Iowa International Writing Programme and the John Farrar Fellow in Fiction at the 2003 Bread Loaf Writers. He is a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review, in 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, New Writing 14 and the Anthology Miracles, Dreams and Jazz. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in the USA where he lives with his family.