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“A writer is someone who, first of all, is able to listen. To listen not only to the words, but the dreams of those who seem distant and diverse.”  -   Mia Couto

1. He became the first writer from Mozambique to be awarded the $50,000 prized 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature on November 1^st, 2013.
2.  Couto’s novel, Sleepwalking Land (1992), was named one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, and it received the National Fiction Award from the Association of Mozambican Writers (AEMO) in 1995.
3. His parents were forced to emigrate to Mozambique from Portugal in the 1950s for political reasons.
4. His first book of poems, Raiz de Orvalho, was published in 1983; it included texts aimed against the dominance of Marxist militant propaganda.
5.  Couto has mentioned works by Brazilian writers – João Guimarães Rosa, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, João Cabral de Melo Neto, and Latin American writers Juan Rulfo and Gabriel García Márquez as his biggest literary inspirations.
6.  The most important book to Couto is the unfinished work, O Livro do Desassossego (The Book of Disquiet), by Fernando Pessoa. He has called it his Bible.
7.  In 2007, he became the first African author to win the prestigious Latin Union Literary Prize.
8.  His name ‘Mia’ comes from his love of cats, as the Portuguese for meow is “miar.”

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• Nnedinma Okoroafor was born on April 8^th 1974 in Cincinatti, Ohio and is a Nigerian-American writer and professor.
• She specializes in fantasy, science fiction and speculative fiction.
• She is a 2001 graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop in Lansing, Michigan and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois, Chicago.
• Nnedi is a professor of Creative Writing currently at the Chicago State University and lives in Illinois.
• She received a 2001 Hurston-Wright literary award for her story “Amphibious Green”
• After her 2001 award, she published 2 books for young adults: The Shadow Speaker and Zahrah the Windseeker.
• Zahrah the Windseeker won the Wole Soyinka price for Literature in Africa and was shortlisted for the 2005 Carl Brandon Parallax and Kindred Awards and a finalist for the Garden State Teen Book Awards and the Golden Duck Award.
• “The Shadow Speaker”, one of her books won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, a Booksense Pick for Winter 07/08, a  Tiptree Honor book, a finalist for Essence Magazine Literary Award, the Andre Norton Award and the Golden Duck Award and an NAACP Image Award nominee.
• Okoroafor’s children book, “Long Juju Man” won the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa in 2007/2008.
• Her first adult novel, “Who fears Death” won the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, was a 2011 Tiptree Honor Book and was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award.
• In 2011, she returned to young adult with “Akata Witch” which was a junior library guild selection and nominated for Andre Norton Award. It was also on the American’s library association’s Amelia Bloomer project honoring children’s book with feminist themes.
• Okoroafor’s short stories have been published into anthologies and magazines.
• 1n 2009, she donated her archive to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Collection of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the North Illinois University Library
• She has a daughter, who goes by the name Anyaugo.
• She grew up wanting to be an entomologist.
• She earned her BA in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois, MA in Journalism from Michigan State University.
• Her first full length play, Full Moon was produced by a theatre company in Chicago, 2005 and her screenplay was filmed in Nigeria, 2011 by Tchidi Chikere.
• Her greatest influences are Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, Tove Jansson, Hayao Miyazaki, Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
• You can follow her on twitter @Nnedi or check her website www.nnedi.com

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• Artist of the Year 2013 at The Headies
• Hottest Single of the Year 2013 at the Nigerian Entertainment Awards for ‘Kukere’
• Best Pop Single 2012 at The Headies

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• Artist of the Year 2013 at The Headies
• Hottest Single of the Year 2013 at the Nigerian Entertainment Awards for ‘Kukere’
• Best Pop Single 2012 at The Headies

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Are you a writer seeking international recognition? Purple Leaf Publishing Ltd is looking for authors who have a book to be published in the following genres – self help books, cookery books, autobiographies (Non-fiction) and children's books.

Purple Leaf Publishing, a UK based publishing company is looking for the next great author. If you are a writer who has a manuscript or are working on, this is your chance to get published internationally.

The author has full creative control over their own book, as their (Purple Leaf) editing, design and production teams ensure the highest quality treatment for your book. Working closely with the author at every step to make sure the book is produced exactly the way the author describes it.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Purple Leaf Publishing is a company established to publish works of new and established authors. Purple Leaf Publishing offers two types of publishing, traditional publishing and self publishing.

Purple Leaf Publishing is a fully customized book publisher, making it unique in the publishing market. They are interested in talented authors, and authors who are passionate about writing; and they publish fiction, nonfiction and children’s books.

If you have written a biography, children’s book, fictional story, cook book or any other subject we would like to hear from you.  Whether you are a writer seeking to share your story with the world or a professional interested in enhancing or building a business with your book, a student wanting to publish their thesis, Purple Leaf Publishing has unique programs and services to help you achieve your publishing goals. These services will be tailored to your needs.

Whether your manuscript is a ready-to-print finished PDF file or a working draft requiring editing, illustration, and formatting services, they’ve got the resources you need to create a professional trade paperback or hardcover book and distribute your books cost effectively.

To be considered send your proposal to info@purpleleafpublishing.com.

Here are 7 requirements for your proposal:

1.   How to hand in your Proposal?
   A proposal should a detailed idea of what your book will be about. Your initial submission should include a letter of introduction, a proposal as outlined below, your CV or resume, and a sample chapter or two.
2.   Brief Description.
   In a few paragraphs, describe the work. Be sure to include what you consider to be the outstanding, distinctive, or unique features of the work. This narrative description should explain the proposed book's purpose, themes, arguments, scope, contribution to scholarship, and place in the literature.
3.       Outline / Table of Contents.
   Include a detailed outline of the book with paragraph-length descriptions of each chapter.
4.       Apparatus / Illustrative Materials.
   What do you estimate to be the length of the completed book?
   Approximately how many photographs and/or line drawings (charts, graphs, diagrams, etc.) do you plan to include? If illustrations are planned, please send photocopies of sample art – do not send original photographs, artwork, negatives, or any materials that are irreplaceable.
5.       Market Considerations.
   For what type of reader is your book intended?
6.       Competition.
   Describe existing books in this field and spell out how your book will be similar to, as well as different from, these works. Discuss specifically their strengths and weaknesses, how your coverage may vary from the competing titles.
7.       Status of the Work.
   What portion or percentage of the material is now complete? When do you expect to have a complete manuscript?

After receipt of your proposal, your work will be accessed in a timely manner, but because Purple leaf Publishing receives hundreds of book proposals each year, it may take up to two weeks for a response to this initial submission. During the waiting period, we do not accept phone queries regarding the status of your proposal.

Send the above information to info@purpleleafpublishing.com or visit http://www.purpleleafpublishing.com/
All manuscripts must be saved in either word or PDF format.

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1. The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE), a project of the International Missionary Council in coordination with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and British colonial governments of Tanganyika (Present day Tanzania), Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) in the mid-1930s, took place between 1935 and 1937. 35 educational films were produced for the education of the black ("bantu") people. The BEKE productions were silent, low quality films with naive plots that usually involved a "wise guy" (giving the good example) prevailing over a "stupid guy" (impersonating bad habits). The main teachings conveyed by the films were about hygienical rules, methods of cash crop cultivation and cooperative marketing, and "prestige films" that highlighted the institutions of British rule.

2. Only three of the BEKE films survive and are held at the British Film Institute Archives, they are: "Veterinary Training of African Natives" (1936), "Tropical Hookworm" (1936), and "African Peasant Farms - the Kingolwira Experiment" (1936).

3. 1934, in the French colonies, Africans were, by law, not permitted to make films of their own. This ban was known as the "Laval Decree". The ban stunted the growth of film as a means for Africans to express themselves politically, culturally, and artistically.

4. In 1955, however, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra – originally from Benin, but educated in Senegal – along with his colleagues from Le Group Africain du Cinema, shot a short film in Paris by the name of Afrique Sur Seine (1955). Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in France during the 1950s and is considered to be the first film directed by a black African.

5. Before independence of francophone colonies, only a few anti-colonial films were produced. Examples include Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about European robbery of African art (which was banned by the French for 10 years).

6. The first African film to win international recognition was Senegalese, Ousmane Sembène's La Noire de... also known as Black Girl. It showed the despair of an African woman who has to work as a maid in France. The writer Sembène had turned to cinema to reach a wider audience. He is still considered to be the "father" of African Cinema.

7. The Federation of African Filmmakers (FEPACI) was formed in 1969 in order to focus attention on the promotion of African film industries in terms of production, distribution and exhibition. FEPACI looks at the role of film in the politico-economic and cultural development of African states and the continent as a whole, making it a critical partner of the then OAU, now the AU.

8. Ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African woman film director to gain international recognition.

9. In 2008, Manouchka Kelly Labouba became the first woman to direct a fictional film in the history of Gabon. Her short film, Le Divorce, addresses the clash between modern and traditional values and its impact on a young Gabonese couple's attempt to divorce.

10. The cinema of Nigeria (referred to informally as Nollywood) grew quickly in the 1990s and 2000s to become the second largest film industry in the world in number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of the United States and behind only Indian cinema.

11. The release of the Straight-to-video movie Living in Bondage in 1992 by NEK Video Links owned by Kenneth Nnebue launched the Home video market in Nigeria. Nnebue had an excess number of imported video cassettes which he then used to shoot his first film on a Video Camera.

12. April 1966, the first Art Festival was hosted in Dakar; 26 films from 16 African countries were screened at this festival. At the end of the Festival a resolution for the creation of an inter-African body of Cinematography was made and this was led by the African Cinema group.

13. The first African film to win an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film was Tsotsi (2006), a South-African production.

14. Since 1896, more than 4000 films have been produced in Egypt, which accounts for three quarters of the global Arab film production. Egypt occupies the position of one the biggest film producers of the Middle East.

15. Nigerian filmmaker, Adamu Halilu, whose 1976 film, Shehu Umar, a chronicle of the life and times of the eponymous turn of the century figure whose life story he traces in this narrative about Islam in West Africa. The film is an adaptation of the novel Shaihu Umar, written in 1955 in Hausa by Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, the first Prime Minister of Nigeria.

16. Latola Films was the first and earliest film production company in Nigeria, it started movie production as far back as 1962.

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1. Take full advantage of company’s employee paybacks: One can create wealth over time from remunerations, allowances, settlements etc. if there is consistent saving over time. Four years may not be enough career individuals to have made significant savings, going forward, one should exploit the many sources of income in the companies. The culture of making small contributions to personal saving accounts available in many banks as well as maintaining strong financial discipline can be very helpful in the future financial needs.
2. Make effort to reduce cost of living: It is a well-known fact that most career individuals spend most of salaries on exorbitant rents, fueling of vehicles, household furniture, food and hospitality, wardrobes etc. It is best to keep these expenses low so as to make brisk savings and take on other pressing things to avoid future regrets.
3. Keep tap on acquiring education: Financials spent on acquisition of College, University degrees and certificates could be said to be enormous investment into one’s future. Earning higher educations can afford one more opportunities and improve career choices in the nearest time to come. Furthering one’s education can provide better understanding on new methods and techniques useful for the job experience/career. It is wiser to enroll for education using many available e-learning prospects in this Internet age without having to physically visit the location of the educational institutions.
4. Improve your skills: There is no known limit for innovations in many professions and careers. Day after day, new set of knowledge and technology evolve that require new training and new skills should one continues to be relevant. The first four years of one’s career should afford the best chances for investing in many skills acquisitions endeavours, whether on the job or any other kinds of job such as computer literacy and appreciations, learning of foreign languages, etc. This will give you edge over others, and reduces fear of lay-offs due to redundancies; especially in the present world of worst unemployment records.
5. Extend your horizon to invest in properties and other businesses: It is so easy to get a bank loan or other financial services if one has collateral in the forms of land, building, business entities etc. Depending on one’s will to succeed, he should have other sources of income to reduce over dependence on one career and stress on one’s finance in case of any eventuality. These can be achieved by investing in properties that could make one earn good money, because of its potentials to appreciate in value over the time to come.

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1.       3.2 billion people worldwide watched the 2010 World Cup, that’s 46.4 percent of the world.
2.       Bosnia-Herzegovina will be the only nation making a debut in this year’s Worl Cup tournament in Brazil.
3.       No nation from outside South America has ever won the World Cup hosted by a South American nation.
4.       Extend that into North and Central America and the same pattern emerges, with only Brazil and Argentina winning tournaments hosted in Mexico (twice) and the United States.
5.      A host team has never lost an opening match.
6.      Brazil is the only team to qualify for every single World Cup tournament.
7.       The average age of players at the 2010 World Cup at South Africa was 26 years 9 months.
8.       Pele of Brazil is the youngest ever goal scorer at the Fifa World Cup. He scored his first World Cup goal against Wales during the 1958 World Cup at 17 years 239 days.
9.       There are more countries that compete to play in the world Cup than are members of the United Nations.
10.   A few months before the 1966 World Cup, the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen after it went on display at a London stamp exhibition, despite 24-hour surveillance. Six days after it disappeared, a man named David Corbett and his dog, Pickles, were taking a stroll in London’s Beulah Hill district when Pickles began sniffing a newspaper-wrapped parcel – which contained the trophy.
11.    Due to financial concerns and FIFA’s requirement that all players wear shoes during matches, the Indian team, who qualified for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, chose to withdraw from the competition. The Indian footballers were only accustomed to playing barefoot at the time.
12.   One of the greatest Italian footballers of all time, Guseppe “Peppino” Meazza, who played a crucial role in his country’s 1934 World Cup victory; was known to routinely sleep in brothels on nights before matches and would stumble onto the field for practice several hours after the rest of his teammates.
13.   Lev Yashin, the great Soviet goalkeeper, played in three World Cups (1958, 1962 and 1966). Known as the “Black Spider” for his signature all-black outfit and ability to block balls as if he had more than two arms, he was voted best goalie of the century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics. When asked about his pre-match routine, he said that the trick was to “have a smoke to calm your nerves, then toss back a strong drink to tone your muscles.”
14.   No country has won the World Cup three times consecutively; Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962) have both won back-to back championships.
15.   Lucien Laurent of France scored the first goal in World Cup history on July 13, 1930.
16.   The record for most individual goals in a tournament is held by France’s Just Fonatine, with 13. He played in just one World Cup (1958).
17.   Italian goalkeeper, Dino Zoff, became the oldest player to lift the trophy at 40 years and 133 days in 1982.
18.   Italian forward, Gianfranco Zola is the only player to be sent off at the World Cup on his birthday. He received a red in a second round victory against Nigeria on his 28th birthday.
19.   Brazil leads all countries with 40 sparkling clean sheets.
20.   Indonesia has played the least world cup games with only 1 (they lost 6-0). If you’re wondering why they only played one match, it’s because they refused to play Israel in their next game (presumably because they’re Jewish).
21.   The biggest ever attendance for a World Cup match is 200,000 people. They all squeezed into the Maracana Stadium for a match between Brazil and Uruguay during the 1950 World Cup.
22.   The fastest goal ever scored at a World Cup was knocked in by Turkish forward, Hakan Sukur, against South Korea in the 2002 World Cup. It took him just 11 seconds.
23.   Norman Whiteside is the youngest player to ever take the field at a World Cup. He was just 17 years, one month and 10 days when he played for Northern Ireland against Yugoslavia at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. When he got back home, his mother grounded him for a week for not calling her to let him know he’d arrived safely in Madrid.
24.   Mario Zagallo is the only person to have won the World Cup 4 times, as a player for Brazil (Sweden 1958 and Chile 1962), as the Manager of the Brazilian team (Mexico 1970) and Assistant Manager of the Brazilian team (USA 1994).

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“I enjoy myself a lot but I derive more joy in working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secrets is hard work. I don’t rest until I achieve something.” – Aliko Dangote

Written By: Olusola Agbaje

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