By Tunji Ajibade
The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, along with Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cornwall, hosted Nigeria’s award-winning writer, Jekwu Anyaegbuna, to a reception to celebrate the Commonwealth Diaspora of the United Kingdom.
The event which held on 9th June, 2022 was specially targeted at eminent citizens of Commonwealth countries who are resident in the United Kingdom.
An invitation letter received by Anyaegbuna reads, “Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall cordially invite the pleasure of Mr Jekwu Anyaegbuna at the celebration of the Commonwealth Diaspora of the United Kingdom to be given at Buckingham Palace.”
(Photo Credit: Buckingham Palace)
Of the day he and other invitees were hosted, Anyaegbuna recalled that, “On arrival at Buckingham Palace, I was curious to know why I had been so honoured with such a rare invitation. An assistant of Her Royal Highness told me it was because I had won a Commonwealth Prize previously. This revelation thrilled me to no end. I had enchanting conversations with both Prince Charles and Her Royal Highness. It was a privilege to be so recognised by such a prestigious royal institution.”
“It was an invitation from Buckingham Palace, which sounded extremely far-off in my imagination. There was a brief impetus to delete it instantly, but I waited because the email was from a known source, a trusted one. I read it again. Then my disbelief started to morph gradually into what might be an exciting reality,” Anyaegbuna said.
Anyaegbuna was the winner of the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa; 2020 UEA Faculty of Arts and Humanities Studentship; 2018 UEA Miles Morland Foundation African Scholarship; 2015 Elizabeth Kostova Foundation Fiction Fellowship in Sofia, Bulgaria; 2010 Editor’s Choice Poem, Breadcrumbs Scabs, United States.
He has attended, in 2022, ‘Write A Short Story with Hannah Tinti’, a workshop with the Executive Editor of One Story Magazine, New York. In 2021, he attended the ‘Pace & Plot’, a seminar with novelist Femi Kayode, organised by Bloomsbury Publishing, London. In 2015, he attended the Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria, and in 2009 the Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop with novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Lagos, Nigeria.
Anyaegbuna graduated with an MA degree in Creative Writing – Prose Fiction – from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, where he has also been a fully-funded Researcher and an Associate Tutor in Literature and Creative Writing.
As to how he felt about the royal invitation and the event at Buckingham Palace, Anyaegbuna said, “I’ve always admired such cultural institutions around the world because they emblematize history.”
