FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 November 2017
Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley has been included in the 2018 Powerlist, which honours the most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage in the UK. Her inclusion recognises the significance of her appointment as the first African Chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing. The Powerlist is published annually by Powerful Media, and was this year announced at an “influencers dinner” at Draper’s Hall, London.
The award comes at an exciting time for The Caine Prize, which is to embark on a series of new outreach activities to encourage greater awareness of, and participation with, African fiction. In 2018 the Prize will launch an online editing scheme, providing a valuable resource for African writers who stand to gain from the experience of accomplished writers from around the world. At the same time, the Caine Prize will be engaging in more work in the US as part of a programme designed to re-energise the ways we talk about contemporary African fiction. More details to be announced in due course.
Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley was recently interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, where she discussed the life of Una Marson, the broadcaster and activist who was the BBC’s first black programmer. The interview is available here (from 50 minutes).
Commenting, Delia said, “It’s right that the significance of the Caine Prize appointing its first African chair is recognised, and I hope my inclusion on the 2018 Powerlist will help raise the profile of the organisation. I am looking forward to continuing the work of my predecessor as custodian of the Caine Prize, while also taking it in my own direction. In launching a new online editing service for African authors and expanding our work in the USA, a renewed emphasis will be placed on reaching out to the literary community, for the benefit of both writers and consumers of African fiction”.
In December the Caine Prize will announce its panel of judges for 2018, and the award dinner will be held in London for the second time. The deadline for submissions to the 2018 Prize is 31 January. Publishers are encouraged to submit qualifying stories in good time. Submissions are welcome year round and late submissions will be entered in to the competition for the following year.
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Notes to Editors
The Caine Prize, awarded annually for African creative writing, is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years.
The Prize is awarded for a short story by an African writer published in English (indicative length 3,000 to 10,000 words). An African writer is taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality.
The African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka and J M Coetzee, are Patrons of The Caine Prize. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is President of the Council, Ben Okri OBE is Vice President, Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley is the Chair, Adam Freudenheim is the Deputy Chairperson and Dr Lizzy Attree is the Director.
Previous winners are Sudan’s Leila Aboulela (2000), Nigerian Helon Habila (2001), Kenyan Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Kenyan Yvonne Owuor (2003), Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava (2004), Nigerian Segun Afolabi (2005), South African Mary Watson (2006), Ugandan Monica Arac de Nyeko (2007), South African Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008), Nigerian EC Osondu (2009), Sierra Leonean Olufemi Terry (2010), Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo (2011), Nigerian Rotimi Babatunde (2012), Nigerian Tope Folarin (2013), Kenyan Okwiri Oduor (2014), Zambian Namwali Serpell (2015), and South African Lidudumalingani (2016); and Sudanese writer, Bushra al-Fadil (2017).
The five shortlisted stories, alongside stories written at Caine Prize workshop held in Tanzania in March 2017, are published annually by New Internationalist (UK), Interlink Publishing (USA), Jacana Media (South Africa), Lantern Books (Nigeria), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe), Mkuki na Nyota (Tanzania), Redsea Cultural Foundation (Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and UAE), Gadsden Publishers (Zambia) and Huza Press (Rwanda). Books are available from the publishers or from the Africa Book Centre, African Books Collective or Amazon. This 2017 anthology is titled, The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories.
The Caine Prize is principally supported by The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The Miles Morland Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, the Booker Prize Foundation, Sigrid Rausing & Eric Abraham, The Wyfold Charitable Trust, the Royal Over-Seas League and John and Judy Niepold. Other funders and partners include, The British Council, Georgetown University (USA), The Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, The van Agtmael Family Charitable Fund, Rupert and Clare McCammon, Adam and Victoria Freudenheim, Arindam Bhattacherjee, Phillip Ihenacho and other generous donors.
For more information
Henry Gilliver
henry@raittorr.co.uk
020 7922 7719
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