Creating the Caine Prize Shortlist: The Agony of Choosing and the Stories that Almost Made it

The question that I have been asked most frequently is ‘What is it like judging a prize?’ The answer is: it is a privilege but also emotionally taxing. You want to honour the hard work and creativity that went into the writing of each short story. Ten stories in (there were 230 stories eligible), you realise, with heartbreaking clarity, that there will be far, far more worthy stories than there are finalist slots. [It is here that I found Petina Gappah’s essay particularly helpful. Dear Tete Petina: I Am Not on the Caine Prize Shortlist | By Petina Gappah (brittlepaper.com)  I – we – could not magic up more finalist places, much as we would have liked to.] How does one choose between them?

At an early panel meeting, I had asked my fellow judges what they looked for in a short story – they were, after all, published writers of some renown. The answers were: ‘Well, I like a story to have a good ending’; ‘I think a story should have a good hook’; ‘I really like it when the author feels free to intersperse words from their mother tongue – it feels more natural’; ‘I don’t know – I just have to really like it. It has to grip me from beginning to end, to surprise me; and ending with, ‘I will know when I find “the one”.’ Reader, I am trying to tell you that there is no science to this. It is about what gives one ‘the feels’. In my case, it was also about thinking about a broader audience beyond the literary elite who edit or read literary magazines. Literature, in my opinion must be accessible to all – not just materially, but also in terms of comprehensibility and contextual legibility. My 77-year-old mother’s favourite book is Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter. It is not a complex book, but it is a universal story, well told. It has resonated across generations and through decades. It is rightly considered to be a classic.  In judging, I was cognisant too, that tastes and literary styles differ. There had, in my view, to be something for everyone.  More challenging for me was that there were so many themes that were explored with beauty and insight.

Themes

The breadth came in the themes covered. It was not surprising that COVID came up as did stories on migration – both transnational and within borders. Stories about love between two people of the same gender were submitted. Powerful were the environmental apocalypse stories. Sympathetically realised were stories about albinism. One or two I read as political allegories. Exquisite in its gentle quietness, was a story about the life of a petrol attendant. Charming was the story written as if it were an entry in a non-fiction science book. Stunning was the use of architecture and the construction of homes to explore domestic violence. There were dystopian stories about medical experimentation. I liked that there were stories set in both urban and rural areas and in different historical periods. Some intercut histories of resistance and survival – African with African American  – to great effect. We were moved by the stories of ordinary people doing their best to get by – the widowed mother in the refugee camp and the young men hustling on the streets of Lagos. I liked that the stories reflected the whole lifecycle – from birth to old age. There were morality tales with a sting (don’t dump your university love for escort work – you’ll regret it, was one). There were others. The exploration of masculinity was fresh.  Food was a theme – not least in stories from Nigeria. I have enjoyed gallons of egusi soup and look forward to more snails. Music resonated through some stories, in the rhythm of the writing as well in the naming of artists and tunes.

Were there any that we did not like? Well, I grew weary of paw paw-coloured skin which, more often than not, seemed to have an association with beauty. The colourism did not sit well with me.  I was not keen on the misogyny on display in a couple of stories, especially as the stories were not well told making it an endurance without reward. Yes, judges being human, have biases too. There were stories that could and should have been better edited – spelling mistakes in the first line do not bode well. Those of my fellow judges who had read one or two stories in their original form felt that some of the translations did not do the original justice. One or two of the longer-form stories (between seven to nine thousand words) read as if they were chapters culled from a novel in progress and sent in. The writing was good but one had the sense that reading the extract in context would have been a more rewarding experience.

So, how does one decide?

The answer is  – with great difficulty.  Judges received an Excel sheet with links to the stories. The Excel sheet was numbered from AA001 to AA230. I started at the top but would print stories from the bottom to read when my eyes grew tired of reading online or when I was travelling and not sure of the internet connection. One had to grade the stories from 1-5.  In addition, I had an A4-size notebook labelled ‘Caine Prize’. I wrote a short summary of each submission on the Excel sheet and reasons for its grade, while my notebook was a conversation with myself and my response after reading each story. On the spreadsheet, I marked out those that I thought were definite contenders by using bold text, those that were maybe were italicised. This was supposed to help to whittle the list down, but I ended up with over 30 stories. Re-reading did not lead to cutting out many. I tried refining by themes but there were inter-theme ties or stand-offs. It felt like a cacophony of ‘pick me’ ‘pick me!’ in my head. My family grew tired of my lengthy discourses about the relative merits of stories that they had not read, finally observing that I seemed to like so many, in other words, please – enough!

At the end, we were told to submit our five finalists. Our pleas for a longlist of ten fell on deaf ears. Clearly, the organisers have heard the special pleading before. I tried to cheat by having a tie. Our choices were put on a spreadsheet and then the discussion began. It took close to four hours and multiple rounds of voting and discussion. We all lost at least one story that we loved – most of us, more than one. I am a human rights lawyer and the process reminded me of how human rights treaties are drafted – they go through multiple discussions and negotiations and what emerges is what can be agreed on.

Luckily, ours was a happy, supportive, thoughtful and truly wonderful family to be a part of. Our emails including: ‘I think I found the one!’ to, ‘I’m still looking’ to wondering about the advantages of polyamory (the love of many) were always bountiful in their kindness, humour and determination to do our best by the people who had honoured us with their submissions.

Will everyone agree with our choices? No. As I have said, we all have ‘the one that got away’. That makes at least five – meaning this could easily have been a different shortlist.  For those who submitted in 2023 – a deep, heartfelt thank you. I have made note of so many stories that I will read again, use in my teaching and writing or share with others. You have enriched our lives and we thank you. Please keep writing – your work is important. Thank you too to the editors whose work, though unseen, is central to the production of the stories that are submitted. Thanks are also due to the publishers, for submitting the stories, and indeed, for providing them a home to begin with.  Aluta!

Fareda Banda, Chair of Judges (2023)

A Tribute to C.J. (Jonty) Driver from the Council of The Caine Prize for African Writing

Jonty Driver, who has died aged 83, was in every way a large and impressive presence on the Advisory Council of The Caine Prize, joining it at its inception and only resigning from it in 2020.  Jonty was a big man physically: this was always the first thing anybody said about him when they first met him.  Within a short while, however, they would be saying he was a big man morally.  He was never afraid to speak his mind, even when he felt that the balance of opinion might be going against him.

Jonty had the right background for speaking up, having served in 1963 and 1964 as president of the National Union of South African Students. It is hard to recall for those who were not alive at the peak of apartheid how exposed a position this was.  Jonty felt that his responsibilities lay to all students, not just those like himself who were white and from a relatively privileged background.  Inevitably he aroused suspicion in the paranoic world of the South African government and its spying agencies.  He was arrested and spent several weeks in solitary confinement.  Never formally charged, he decided on release to leave South Africa and to come to England.  The metaphorical scars of what he had been through, and what he had seen among deprived communities in black South Africa, never left him. Even in old age he felt, by his association with The Caine Prize and with the Beit Trust, that he was paying something back to the continent and to the country which had nurtured him at the expense of so many millions less advantaged.

He was a literary man through and through.  His novel Elegy for a Revolutionary came out in 1969 and is still regarded as a classic exposition of the liberal dilemmas of the day. Is armed conflict justified in opposing a tyrannous regime?   Jonty was the author of five novels in all and went on to write two biographies of South African dissenters, Patrick Duncan and John Harris. 

I suspect, however, that he wanted most of all to be remembered as a poet.  His collections So Far and Still Further bring together most of his major poems written between 1960 and 2020.  They are various in subject, some personal, some public, but always they seem to me to be pressing against the forms that poetry can take, as though he wanted to mould new shapes and possibilities for the art itself.  He was a great believer in the pamphlet poem, such as The Slave-Bell at Doornhoek, which he accompanied with a water colour, ‘a painting and a poem’.   It was from this late work that I quoted at our most recent Council meeting:

                                  ‘The names we gave the places where we lived

                                    (not all that long ago) are changing now,

                                    to what they might have been before we came,

                                    or what we might have wished they would have been

                                    if we had never settled here.   How vain

                                    that we should think we could repair the past

                                    or give that bell another, better voice.’

Jonty was a paradoxical man.  A revolutionary, yet a conservative.  A man horrified by injustices perpetrated by his own class and breed, yet the successful headmaster of three independent schools - Berkhamsted School and Wellington College in England, and the Island School in Hong Kong – which some people might say exist to perpetuate these élites.  He was above all an immensely kind man.  On several occasions my wife and I visited Jonty and his wife Ann at their serene bookish home in east Sussex.  They were a model couple in the manner in which they faced some of the debilities of old age.  Jonty did most of the cooking because he loved to do so.  Anything he embarked on he did with the utmost fastidiousness.  The result was, for example, a perfect salmon mousse, the recipe for which I shall always treasure.  He was a rounded ‘man o’ pairts’, as we say in Scotland. 

And coming back to the Caine Prize, he was always wise and judicious in his counsel. He valued the Prize because it recognises so many voices that might otherwise remain unheard.  It also allowed him to stay connected with the African literary world, in which he had played a major role.  His sister’s partner is J. M. Coetzee.  If I had such a formidable Nobel laureate in my family I would be anxious about anything I wrote, but Jonty was uncowed.  In his way he was no lesser a writer and, like Coetzee, he was one of the greatest sons of modern South Africa.  The Caine Prize should be proud of its links with him and must pass to his widow our sorrow at his passing.

Alastair Niven, London, August 2023

A Tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo from the Council of The Caine Prize for African Writing

The name of Ama Ata Aidoo deserves to feature high on any list of influential Anglophone African writers, particularly notable for giving a perspective on women to be found nowhere else. She made her mark not only as an author – with plays, novels, short stories, poetry and essays – but also as a politician, an academic and an activist. Holding strong Pan-Africanist views, she was fearlessly outspoken about the centuries of exploitation of Africa's resources and peoples (as can be heard in a video clip about imperialism that went viral), and always made it clear that she learned her first feminist lessons in Africa.

Born in 1940, Christina Ama Ata Aidoo began the trajectory that launched her literary life in a Fante village in the Central Region of what was then the Gold Coast, where she was born to Maame Elizabeth Aba Abasema Bosu and Nana Manu III – also known as Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor. Ama Ata was her mother’s first child, though she had many older siblings from her father’s other wives. She grew up in her father’s royal household, shaped by the stimulus of interactions between family as well as those who came to the chief with local issues.

Her father built the village’s first school, which she began attending in 1946. She went on to win a scholarship at 14 to the prestigious Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast in 1957. During this time, her love of reading and writing was nurtured, leading in 1958 to her receiving first prize for a story in a Daily Graphic competition. Completing her A-levels in 1960, she was admitted the next year to the University of Ghana, Legon, studying for a BA degree in English, while simultaneously demonstrating her creative skill at whatever writing genre she attempted. In 1962, she won an Mbari Club short-story competition with her entry “No Sweetness Here”, and poetry prizes, too, came her way.

While still an undergraduate, Aidoo wrote her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, premiered in 1964 at the Open-Air Theatre, and in 1965 published by Longman – an achievement marking her out as the first published female African dramatist. She joined the Institute of African Studies for two years, until 1966, benefiting from the mentorship of literary pioneer Efua Sutherland. Then, as the winner of a creative writing fellowship, Ama Ata went to Stanford University in California. A spell in the UK followed, freelancing in broadcasting and journalism, and travels took her elsewhere in Europe and on the African continent, including Tanzania and Kenya, where her daughter Kinna was born in Nairobi, with 1969 also bringing a return to Ghana.

In 1970 came her second play, Anowa, and the short-story collection No Sweetness Here. A rising academic career took her to the Department of English at the University of Cape Coast, where she became a professor, participating in many international seminars and educational initiatives. Her witty and unconventional debut novel Our Sister Killjoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint was published in 1977.

She was appointed Secretary for Education in Ghana in 1982 under the PNDC administration of Jerry Rawlings, but resigned after 18 months, realizing that she would be unable to achieve her aim of making education in Ghana freely accessible to all.

In 1983, she moved to live in Zimbabwe, continuing her work in education, alongside her writing. While in Harare, she published a collection of poems in 1985, Someone Talking to Sometime, and wrote a children's book entitled The Eagle and the Chickens and Other Stories (1986). From the late 1980s, she was again in the US, including a spell as writer-in-residence at the University of Richmond, Virginia, in 1989. In 1991, she and poet Jayne Cortez founded and co-chaired the Organization of Women Writers of Africa.

In 1992, Ama Ata won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize with her remarkable novel Changes, and she turned again to poetry with her collection An Angry Letter in January; that same year, I was delighted to include her story "Two Sisters" in my anthology Daughters of Africa. (An anthologist in her own right, she edited 2006’s African Love Stories, published by Ayebia Books.) Ama Ata Aidoo’s commitment to promoting and supporting the literary work of African women was demonstrated again by her establishment of the Mbaasem Foundation in Ghana in 2000.

Aligned with the principled life choices she made, and the stalwart beliefs framed by her own experiences, she portrayed in her works memorable women who defied stereotypes in empowering and inspirational ways, negotiating, examining and exploring the intersections of Western and African worldviews.

From 2004 to 2011, Ama Ata was a visiting professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. She chaired the Ghana Association of Writers Book Festival from its inception in 2011. In 2012, she published Diplomatic Pounds & Other Stories, a compilation of short stories. Somehow, she found time, year in and year out, to support ventures she deemed worthy, such as the Etisalat Prize for Literature, created in 2013 as a platform for African writers of debut novels of fiction.

Her genuine humility was never affected by the many accolades she received, including the 2012 volume Essays in honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70 (edited by Anne V. Adams, with a stellar list of contributors, among them: Atukwei Okai, Maryse Condé, Micere Mugo, Toyin Falola, Biodun Jeyifo, Kofi Anyidoho, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Naana Banyiwa Horne, Nana Wilson-Tagoe, Carole Boyce Davies, Emmanuel Akyeampong, James Gibbs, Vincent O. Odamtten, Jane Bryce, Esi Sutherland-Addy, Femi Osofisan, Kwesi Yankah, Abena Busia, Yaba Badoe, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Kinna Likimani), and being the subject of a fascinating 2014 documentary film by Yaba Badoe, The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo. In March 2017, the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing (Aidoo Centre) was launched in Accra (Nii Parkes was its inaugural director), furthering her legacy.

Having already lived a full life defined from its earliest by so much creativity, versatility, integrity and generosity, Ama Ata had even more in mind that she had hoped to give us – including finalising a new novel she told me she had been working on for 18 years. Her death on 31 May 2023 came as a shock, an irreparable loss to family and friends, to everyone fortunate enough to have known her personally. The only mitigation is that her extraordinary talent, tenacity of spirit and the perceptiveness that shines through her writing will live on, sustaining us all into a more optimistic future.

                                                Margaret Busby, London, August 2023

Online Entries for Caine Prize for African Writing 2021

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I hope this finds you well. I am sure many of you will know that we are moving to a digital process as the main way of accepting entries to the Caine Prize for African Writing; as this is the first year we are utilising an online entry process for the prize, alongside a number of internal matters within the prize we aim to resolve soon - we hope you will assist us in the process of receiving entries online for the first time by undertaking the following three steps:

1. Submitting your entries via the entry form provided here - which can also be accessed via this link: https://caineprize.typeform.com/to/xbT077

2. Send a back up copy of each entry to the following email address: caineprizesubmissions@gmail.com  –

3. Send a single print copy for reference to the Caine Prize address at:

The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing

CAN Mezzanine Building

7-14 Great Dover Street

London, SE1 4YR

E-mail: info@caineprize.com

The final submission date for entries remains the 31st January 2021, as do the entry criteria for authors and publishers, which are outlined here in more detail.

Yours Sincerely,

Dele Meiji Fatunla,

Administrator, The Caine Prize for African Writing

Equality Statement: AKO Caine Prize for African Writing

As we approach the announcement of the 2020 Winner of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, celebrating the best short stories as chosen by our panel of judges, we find ourselves in a world in turmoil, flux and increasing polarisation.  Our creative community and the wider society are engaged in the discussion of important issues of race, discrimination, gender, identity, and equality - issues often embraced by our writers’ stories. These are important conversations and it is a time to affirm values we hold close.

We at the AKO Caine Prize stand firmly on the side of equality. The AKO Caine Prize is here to support writers of African descent, to amplify their voices and to bring new readers to their works. In doing so, we are committed to the active support of all African writers regardless of their sexuality, gender or gender identity and expression. As a continent of people who have too often been defined by others, we affirm the paramount importance of the individual’s right to name themselves and to be called by their own name. Our commitment is to equality of opportunity and respect for the individual. These are values to which we as staff, trustees and members of the Advisory Council seek to promote. You will see, from our past winners and our current shortlist, that this commitment is one we actively express through the medium of our writers’ telling of stories and the wide and diverse range of characters around which these stories are woven.

We invite you to join us as we celebrate the multiplicity of lives and experiences our writers have imagined.

The Winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing will be announced on 27 July. Read the shortlist here.

Ellah P. Wakatama OBE
Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing

Statement: African Authors Sans Frontieres in Solidarity with African-Americans

African Authors Sans Frontieres in Solidarity with African-Americans

 As African writers without borders who are connected beyond  geography with those who live in the United States of America and other parts of the African diaspora, we state that we condemn the acts of violence on Black people in the United States of America. We note in dismay that what Malcolm X said in Ghana in 1964 that “for the twenty million of us in America who are of African descent, it’s not an American dream; it’s an American nightmare” remains true for 37 million in 2020.

We condemn the murders of:

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Amadou Diallo, Ahmaud Arbery, Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanly-Jones,  Tony McDade, Pamela Turner, Matthew Ajibade, Rekia Boyd, Eric  Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Shelly Frey,  Ezelll Ford, Dante Parker, Michelle Casseaux, Yvette Smith, Darnesha Harris, Laquan Mcdonald, Atatiana Jefferson, George Mann, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Frank Smart, Natasha Mckenna, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, William Chapman II, Alberta Spruill, Walter Scott, Shantell Davis, Eric Harris, Philip White, Mya Hall, Alexia Christian, Brendon Glenn, Victor Manuel Larosa, Jonathan Sanders, Salvado Ellswood, Joseph Mann, Freddie Blue, Albert Joseph Davis,  Darrius Stewart, Billy Ray Davis, Samuel Dubose, Troy Robinson, Christian Taylor, Sean Bell, Brian Keith Day, Michael Sabbie, Asshams Pharoah Manley, Felix Kumi, Keith Harrison McLeod, Junior Prosper, Anthony Ashford, Dominic Hutchinson, Paterson Brown, Lamontez Jones, Bettie Jones, Alonzo Smith,  Tyree Crawford India Kager, Janet Wilson, Sylville Smith, Benni Lee Tignor, Yvonne Smallwood, Kayla Moore  and all other names, known and unknown, that represent human beings who are our kin. 

Our blood.

We support the protests in the United States and across the world as our people demand justice for any and all racial killings whether by police or civilians. We are aware that these are not quiet protests. We do not expect it and neither should the United States of America. The killings were not done quietly. The police brutality and state sanctioned murders were done loudly with no fear of consequences from those who perpetrated them.  

We acknowledge the African Union’s condemnation of the United States government’s  continuous terrorism towards African-Americans. We believe that the African Union can and should do better. 

We ask that African governments recognise our alliance and connections with our brothers and sisters across borders, from America to Brazil and through the rest of the diaspora. That they offer those who choose it: refuge, homes and citizenship in the name of pan-Africanism. 

We demand that the American legal institutions independently investigate every police killing as well as investigate any complaint against police violence. 

We demand that any accused be suspended without pay until a fair trial clears them of charges. In essence, we are asking the United States of America to be brave enough to adhere to its own bill of rights so that it can be the land of the free for ALL Americans regardless of colour, creed or sexual orientation. 

We assert that Black Lives Matter. As writers, we raise our fists in solidarity with those who refuse to be silenced. To our brothers and sisters in the United States, we stand with you. 

We ask all decent human beings to join us in being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. As they protest in the United States, please give whatever donations you can to #BlackLivesMatter https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019

SIGNED: 

1.     Chris Abani

2.     Kelvin Nonvignon Adantchede

3.     Ali J Ahmed

4.     Abdilatif Abdalla 

5.     Yasmin Abdel -Magied

6.      Leila Aboulela

7.      Leye Adenle

8.     Bisi Adjapon

9.     Jose Eduardo Agualusa

10.  Ali J Ahmed

11.  Júlio de Almeida

12.  Ayesha Harruna Attah

13.  Sefi Atta

14.  Meti Birabiro 

15.  Tanella Boni

16.  Nana Brew-Hammond

17.  Noviolet Bulawayo

18.  Shadreck Chikoti

19.  Nana Awere Damoah

20.   Tolu Daniel

21.  Ibrahim El Khalil Diallo

22.  Boubacar Boris Diop

23.  Raoul Djimeli

24.   Edwige Dro

25.   Ainehi Edoro-Glines

26.  Chike Frankie Edozien

27.  Filinto Elisio

28.  Kalaf Epalanga

29.  Amir Tag Elsir

30.  Mona Eltahawy

31.  Ubah Cristina Ali Farah

32.  Virgilia Ferrao

33.  Aminatta Forna

34.  Chimeka Garricks

35.  Kadija George

36.  Laurence Gnaro

37.  Hawa Jande Golakai

38.  Isatou Alwar Graham

39.  Francisco Guita Jr

40.  Helon Habila

41.  Osman Ahmed Hassan

42.  Suad Sadig Hassan

43.  Pede Hollist 

44.  Abdelmoumin Ibrahim

45.   Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

46.  Tsitsi Ella Jaji

47.  Nozizwe Cynthia Jele

48.  Mamle Kabu

49.  Mubanga Kalimamukwento

50.  Tamanda Kanjaye

51.  Precious Colette Kemigisha

52.  Grada Kilomba

53.  Moses Kilolo

54.  David Lukudu

55.  Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse

56.  Angela Makholwa

57.  Nick Makoha

58.   Jennifer Makumbi

59.  Napo Masheane

60.  Mohale Mashigo

61.  Makanaka Mavengere

62.  Eusebius Mckaiser

63.  José Luís Mendonça

64.   Maaza Mengiste

65.  Thando Mgqolozana

66.  Niq Mhlongo

67.  Amna Mirghani

68.  Nadifa Mohamed

69.   Natalia Molebatsi

70.  Yara Monteiro

71.  Merdi Mukore

72.  Marie-Louise Mumbu

73.   Richard Ali Mutu

74.  Kevin Mwachiro

75.   Remy Ngamije

76.  Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

77.  Mukoma wa Ngugi

78.  Nducu Wa Ngugi

79.   Natasha Omokhodion-Banda

80.  Ondjaki

81.  Troy Onyango 

82.  Tochi Onyebuchi

83.  Chinelo Okparanta

84.  Gabriel Adil Osman

85.  Ladan Osman

86.  Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

87.  Nii Ayikwei Parkes

88.  Abreu Paxe

89.  Mbate Pedro

90.  Pepetela

91.  Yovanka Paquete Perdigão

92.  Hannah Azieb Pool

93.  Jorge Querido

94.  Sanaa Abu Qussasa

95.  Djamila Ribeiro

96.  Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin

97.  Mohamedou Ould Salahi

98.  Hassan Ghedi Santur

99.  Malebo Sephodi

100.  Lemya Shammat

101.    Lola Shoneyin

102.   Lemn Sissay

103.   Kola Tubosun

104.   Chika Unigwe

105.     Abdourahman Waberi

106.    Zukiswa Wanner

Coronavirus update - Postponement: AKO Caine Prize Events & Dinner

COVID-19 - AKO Caine Prize for African Writing 2020 Dinner postponed

Monday 23 March 2020 – After the latest government measures to slow down the spread of Coronavirus, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the AKO Caine Prize dinner due to take place on Tuesday 23 June to a later more appropriate date, which will be announced as soon as possible.

The current situation is directly impacting all events leading up to our award ceremony, including the judges’ meeting to select a shortlist, and the travel of our as-of-yet unknown shortlisted writers. Traditionally our shortlisted writers come from all over the world.  

The ramifications of Covid-19 on our industry remain hard to gauge, and we will be regularly monitoring the latest government advice. We make the safety of our staff, guests and partners our main priority. Close internal discussions with our team, Trustees and Advisory Council Members are taking place to map out our response to this unprecedented situation.

We will strive to keep our readership and supporters abreast of developments in the literary world and we will think creatively to engage with our audience remotely. We are looking at ways to make the AKO Caine Prize literature available online and to provide clear updates on our approach in the coming months. Our social media will remain a place to meet. Shortlisted stories from 2015 onwards can be accessed and enjoyed here.

The AKO Caine Prize is a charity and relies on the support and enthusiasm of its donors. While we put a halt to activities on the ground until further notice, we wish to thank again our benefactors for all the fantastic support we are lucky to receive.

Ellah P Wakatama OBE, Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, said: “We are working to ensure the Prize cycle is maintained and we will announce the 2020 shortlist in early May. In the face of this global crisis, people’s health is paramount, and our activities and events will be held online for the foreseeable future. I look forward to meeting supporters on our digital platforms soon.”

We warmly thank you for your support and understanding as we make decisions to protect each other at this difficult time.

Hello From The Caine Prize: #102

Dear Friends,

I hope this email meets you well. It’s been a busy time for us over here at the Caine Prize and we are excited to catch up with you and let you know what we’ve been up to over the last weeks.

New Partnership

I’m sure that most of you have noticed something very exciting, our name has changed! At the end of January we were thrilled to announce a new partnership with the AKO foundation, a London based charity supporting projects which promote the arts, improve education or mitigate climate problems. As part of the agreement, the Prize becomes the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, and will receive a grant to cover its core costs for the next three years.   

Judges

In early February we proudly let you know who the 2020 Caine Prize judges were, we welcome judge’s chair Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp CBE. Audrey Brown, a South African journalist with BBC Africa in London; Gabriel Gbadamosi, a poet, playwright and essayist; Kenyan journalist James Murua, whose blog publishes news and reviews from the African literary scene; and Ebissé Wakjira-Rouw, a Dutch-Ethiopian editor currently working at the Council for Culture. Find out more about them here

Submissions  

The deadline for the 2020 Caine Prize was the 31st January 2020, we received over 200 entries and want to thank each and everyone of you for sending your stories in. The quantity and quality of entries is a testament to the literary talent out there.

Looking Forward

We have handed the 2020 submitted stories over to our new judges who are carefully reading Happy reading and good luck judges! Watch this space for the shortlist announcement.

News

Boundless Africa

February 4- 5, The AKO Caine Prize collaborated with the Camargo Foundation and The Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University for a unique and ground-breaking two-day literary mini-series called “Boundless: Africa,” the series highlighted creative works from 14 writers from Africa and the Diaspora. “Boundless: Africa” was a part of the Kennedy Center’s 2019-2020 WORLD STAGES season. The AKO Caine Prize Chair Ellah Wakatama  moderated a panel  discussion, “TALKING HOME: A Writer’s Life” which featured the 2019 Caine Prize winner Lesley Nneka Arimah,  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, and Titilope Sonuga. The AKO Caine Prize Vice President Ben Okri and previous winners Helon Habila and Tope Folarin also took part in the event.

Power and Language with Lesley Nneka Arimah at Georgetown University

 18th February Lannan Centre for Poetics and Social Practice hosted Power and Language with 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing winner Lesley Nneka Arimah.

Hello From The Caine Prize: #101

We hope you’ve had a good start to 2020, we can’t believe it’s almost the end of January, Christmas seems like a distant memory doesn’t it? If you made New Year’s Resolutions, we hope that you are having success keeping to them. Over here at the Caine Prize we didn’t make any resolutions as such but we did make a resolve that in 2020  communicating with our supporters and with the wider literary community would remain a priority for us, and in this vein we would like to include a regular round up of literary news in our communications with a particular focus on literary news from Africa and the wider African diaspora. We will also be updating you with news from past Caine Prize winners and shortlisted writers.

We’re sure that many of you have been following the Royal Family drama and thinking about the issues surrounding race, identity and discrimination which have been raised. It has been interesting to see the issues that many of us book lovers see robustly tackled in literature from Africa and the African diaspora entering the mainstream.

Outside of Meghan and Harry ‘Megxit’ there has been lots going on, it’s been a busy time in the literary world. Here are some items that caught our attention.

We were absolutely delighted to learn that Margaret Busby OBE, the UK’s first Black woman publisher was announced as Chair of the Booker Prize Judges for this year. Poet and chancellor of the University of Manchester, Lemn Sissay will also be a judge.

2018 Caine Prize winner Makena Onjerika has edited an exciting anthology of fiction from Nairoibi, Digital Bedbugs which is out now

2019 Caine Prize winner Lesley Nneka Arimah wil be at Georgetown University on February 18th presenting “Power and Language”

Cassava Republic Press have launched a literary salon Black: The Literary Salon which showcases wiring from Africa and the Diaspora in London - the line up of events kicks off with Olumide Popoola, Irenosen Okojie and Diana Evans discussing Love and Desire

Looking forward we are entering a busy and significant period of our prize cycle. The deadline for submissions for the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing is nearly upon us and we have been delighted with the number and quality of stories submitted and know that the 2020 judges will be equally delighted. Do look out for our announcement of the 2020 judges soon.

We are excited about 2020, the 21st year of the Caine Prize and promise to keep you updated, we also want to hear from you, please get in contact with us with news from the literary world you think we may want to share with a wider audience , you can email (info@caineprize.com) or DM us via our social media platforms.

Bye for now,

The Caine Prize team