The 2024 Winner

The Caine Prize for African Writing is delighted to announce that South African writer Nadia Davids has been awarded the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing for her outstanding short story, Bridling, published in The Georgia Review in 2023. 

This year’s competition witnessed a record-breaking number of submissions, with 320 entries spanning 28 African countries vying for the coveted prize, while also marking a significant milestone in the Caine Prize’s history as it enters its 25th year. 

Speaking of the winning story, award winning author Chika Unigwe (Chair of Judges) said: “Bridling is an impressive achievement, a triumph of language, storytelling and risk-taking while maintaining a tightly controlled narrative about women who rebel. It embodies the spirit of the Caine Prize, which is to celebrate the richness and diversity of short stories by African writers. That is to say, to challenge the single story of African literature.”

 The 2024 Shortlisted Writers

The shortlisted writers for the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing are:

  1. Tryphena Yeboah (Ghana) for ‘The Dishwashing Women’, Narrative Magazine (Fall 2022)

  2. Pemi Aguda (Nigeria) for ‘Breastmilk’, One Story, Issue #227 (2021)

  3. Samuel Kolawole (Nigeria) for ‘Adjustment of Status’, New England Review, Vol. 44, #3 (Summer

    2023)

  4. Uche Okonkwo (Nigeria) for ‘Animals’, ZYZZYVA (2024)

This year’s shortlisted writers were selected by the 2024 judging panel, chaired by award winning author, Chika Unigwe. Unigwe is joined by Julianknxx, a Sierra Leonean poet, artist and filmmaker; Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean writer, scholar and filmmaker; Tumi Molekane aka Stogie T, a South African Hip-Hop artist, and  Senegalese-based  Ghanaian novelist, Ayesha Harruna Attah.

The Caine Prize Writers’ Workshop was held this year from 16–29 June in Salima, Malawi. This was the eighteenth workshop run by the Prize since 2003. These in-person retreats enable talented African writers, selected from previous winners, finalists and emerging local writers, to take advantage of twelve days’ uninterrupted writing time in an inspiring environment to work on their craft and to give and receive feedback on their writing from their peers and selected industry professionals. The costs of travel, accommodation, and related workshop expenses are fully covered by the Caine Prize, and only made possible by generous donations and in kind support from our partners, sponsors, and friends of the Prize.

By the end of the workshop, writers are expected to have completed a short story of publishable standard for inclusion in the Caine Prize’s anthology. Coordinated by Interim Director Vimbai Shire and facilitated by two award-winning writers – Nigerian crime writer Femi Kayode and South African novelist Karen Jennings, the workshop participants comprised of ten writers representing five African countries. These included former shortlisted writers:

  • Joshua Chizoma (Nigeria, shortlisted in 2022)

  • Ekemini Pius (Nigeria, shortlisted in 2023)

  • Cherrie Kandie (Kenya, shortlisted in 2019)

  • Erica Sugo Anyadike (Tanzania shortlisted in 2020)

    As well as

  • Morabo Morojele (Lesotho)

  • Sibongile Fisher (South Africa)

    And four local writers

  • Yanjanani Banda

  • Ndongolera Mwangupili

  • Foster Benjamin

  • Beaulia Tambala

    All ten participants were Africans resident on the continent.