AFICIONADO AWARD

The AFICIONADO AWARD is a unique cooperation between its founding members, the Aficionado Community of international publishing professionals, the Frankfurter Buchmesse and the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino. The award was designed to connect, support and encourage passionate and dedicated publishing professionals. This year's winner is the Aké Arts and Book Festival, founded by Lola Shoneyin in 2013. Over the last decade, Aké has excelled at establishing a sense of community between participating authors while creating important connections with the local audience in Abeokuta, Lagos State. One of the festival’s explicit aims is to promote literacy, especially among a younger audience. To date, Aké has brought together writers, artists, poets and filmmakers from 29 African countries.

The two shortlistees are the book-magazine The Passenger and the international literature cooperation Meridian Czernowitz