Grand Prix of Literary Associations

The Grand Prix of Literary Associations (GPLA) were launched in 2013 in Cameroon, with the partnership of Brasseries du Cameroun and especially the sponsorship of Castel Beer.

The GPLA are defined as bilingual English-and-French literary prizes, some being awarded on the proposals of literary associations, especially in the Research and Belles-Lettres categories.

The contest is open worldwide, both to authors and to literary associations that propose their works to the Jury. In the 2016 edition (GPLA 2016), more than one hundred works have been submitted to the Jury by the endorsement of 69 associations from diverse countries across the world. The shortlist was made of nine works, three of them being from Cameroon, two others from Nigeria, and four respectively from France / Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Chad.

According to the GPLA Regulation document, the Research and Belles-Lettres categories are open to recent works, published in the 18 months interval before the launch of each edition. Books have to be commended to the Jury by literary associations, or any cultural club active in literature. The Presort Commission readers, some from the GPLA Team and others from the two associations awarded in the previous edition, read the pre-selected works and submit a shortlist to the Jury. The Jury counts at least nine members, in charge of designating two winners, one from the Research category and the other from the Belles-Lettres’. An author regularly competing for those prizes can be awarded three times, but a laureate cannot apply in the edition following his consecration. Another particularity of the GPLA is that even books published by their own authors, without any publishing house label, are allowed; the only condition being that they should be endorsed by literary associations.

In addition to the prizes awarded in the Research and Belles-Lettres categories, there is a Memory Grand Prix (Grand prix de la mémoire), awarded posthumuously to an icon of literature ; a Grand Prix des Mécènes, honours a writer for all his bibliography ; and the Asso-Prize recognizes the will and endeavours of an association for promoting literature.

The GPLA attributes a reward of about one thousand US dollars and a more expensive media promotion for awarded authors and works. Many literary activities are also organized upon the awarded works, such as the GPLA Essay Contest (Concours de Disseration-GPAL), the GPLA Student Day (Journée de l’Etudiant-GPAL), just to name a few of them.

The GPLA Report on the Winners’ designation procedures is a document published for every edition two or three years after its awards ceremony. The report aims to show transparency on GPLA methods and thus prevent any controversy around the laureates.

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