May Ayim Award

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The May Ayim Award - 1st Black German International Literary Award is a literary prize that was awarded in 2004 on the initiative of Michael Küppers-Adebisi of civil society initiative organization AFROTAK TV cyberNomads in cooperation with the civil society initiative Power of the Night - Team, the House of World Cultures in Berlin and the Federal Agency for Civic Education in the absence of the presence of Black German and international voices of African Descent in contemporary German literature.

History

The May Ayim Award was recognized by UNESCO as a German project to commemorate the enslavement trade and its abolition. As one of the events of Black Media Congress Berlin 2004, the May Ayim Award draws a line of remembrance from Brandenburg enslavement trade and Africa Conference Berlin 1884, to Power of the Night - the historically 1st Black German Literature Anthology 1992, to Afrofuturism 2004. 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the award. The May Ayim Award is dedicated to the Black German poet May Ayim to actively contribute to the creation of role models for People of African Descent in Germany. Linton Kwesi Johnson, a long-time friend of May Ayim, volunteered as patron. As a commemorative award, Michael Küppers-Adebisi developed the concept of the Afrofuturistic Black Germania. A sculpture in reference to Tacitus' work Germania, which already tells of Black cultural traces in Germania. The Germania is a short ethnographic writing by the Roman historian Tacitus (ca. 58-120 AD) about the Germanic tribes. The sculpture Black Germania was realized by sculptor Stephen Lawson and presented to the first place winners in poetry, prose and multimedia.

Background

The goal of the award was to raise awareness of Black current literary voices from around the world and to create positive cultural and memorial reference points for People of African Descent in Germany as part of the Black Atlantic, thus anchoring their presence in the German mainstream. As a political statement in the sense of self-empowerment of the Black Community Germany the Project management and financing of the award came exclusively from funds of AFROTAK TV cyberNomads, Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Power of the Night Team (Angela Alagyawana-Kadalie, Anita Berger, Raphael Dernbach, Oliver Fourier, Fidelis Grotke, Michael Küppers-Adebisi, Modupe Laja, Sheila Mysorekar, Magalie Schmidt-Mbawala). Already in 2003 AFROTAK TV cyberNomads had been able to realize a Black German multimedia spoken word performance in the renowned Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin. In this sense, the connection to the cultural institution Haus der Kulturen der Welt was also conceived as an intervention and political statement demanding recognition of underrepresented minorities in white-dominated German cultural institutions. The May Ayim Award's intergenerational approach was emphasized by the presentation of an honorary award in the Youth category to Dayo Adebisi. The expanded literary concept of Black cultures reaching beyond written languages was emphasized by the introduction of a Multimedia category, the presentation of an Honorary Award in the Arts category to Yamilja Liphart, and the CD produced by AFROTAK TV cyberNomads documenting oral, visual, and media contributions. The CD also reissued the Power of Night - Literary Anthology from 1992. Thus, the book publication also represents an innovation in the cooperation between community and publisher. A jury of seven literary critics and scholars selected the winners in a multi-stage process. For example, the jury included: Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (engineer, gender studies, media), Robert Ajani (journalist), Ekpenyong Ani (publisher, translator), Marion Kraft (literary scholar), Peggy Piesche (literary scholar). The jury was coordinated by Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi.

Awardees

• Epik: Mario Curvello 01, Kofi Yakpo 02 und Luc Degla 03

• Lyrik: Olumide Popoola 01, Amatoritsero Ede 02 und Hakim Al-Jamil 03

• Multimedia: MC Santana 01, GERM (Acturus Ra) 02 und Kofi Yakpo 03.

Weblinks

• https://www.berlinerratschlagfuerdemokratie.de/projekte/may-ayim-award-respekt-durch-kunst-respekt-durch-interkulturelle-kompetenz/ • https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3DADFCD1AEA94801 Works

Poetry Collections

• May Ayim. blues in black and white. Africa World Press, Inc., NJ, 2003, ISBN 0-86543-889-7.

Miscellaneous

• 2004: May Ayim Award 1st Black German Internationale Literature Award, Peggy Piesche, Michael Küppers-Adebisi a. o. (publisher), Book and Multimedia-CD. Orlanda Publishing House with cyberNomads, Berlin, ISBN 3-936937-21-4.

• 2023: TheBlackBook 2.0. Generation Repair. Transnational Dialogues Namibia Germany (Germ. and Eng.), publisher: Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi and Michael Küppers-Adebisi, Publishing House: AFROTAK TV cyberNomads, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-9825249-0-0

Categories

• 2004 German Literature Award • May Ayim

References

This article "May Ayim Award" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:May Ayim Award. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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