The third decade of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing kicks off with a record 222 submissions from 28 countries across the Continent
Wednesday, 4 March 2020 – Now entering its third decade, the AKO Caine Prize has received a record total of 222 submissions – the largest number of entries since its inception. The 2020 entries come from 28 African countries, including Botswana, Egypt, Mauritius and Rwanda. A full list of countries represented can be found in the Notes to Editors.
The judges will select only five stories to constitute this year’s shortlist when they meet in London at the end of April. The judging panel will be chaired by Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp CBE, a British-Nigerian, and renowned figure of the arts in the United Kingdom, based in London. He will be joined by Kenyan blogger James Murua; Irish-Nigerian poet and playwright Gabriel Gbadamosi; South African broadcaster Audrey Brown and Ethiopian-born non-fiction editor and podcaster Ebissé Wakjira-Rouw, currently a policy advisor at the Dutch Council for Culture in the Netherlands.
The shortlisted stories for the 2020 AKO Caine Prize will be announced in May.
Each writer shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize will be awarded £500, and the winner will receive a £10,000 prize. If a work in translation is chosen as the winning story, the prize will be shared between the author and the translator.
Commenting on this year’s submissions, Chair of the Prize Ellah Wakatama OBE said: “It’s wonderful to see the Prize receive a burgeoning number of submissions. Authors across African countries are producing remarkable literary works, and we have a ringside seat to read all 222 of them. To bring in our twenty-first year with an abundance of stories from so many countries is extraordinary. It will be hard for our judges to boil it down to just five shortlisted works for this year’s award so I wish them good luck, and I can’t wait to read their selection.”
The five shortlisted stories will be compiled into the official AKO Caine Prize anthology and published by New Internationalist in the UK, Interlink Publishing in the USA, and a variety of international publishers around the world.
In 2020, the anthology will be published by the New Internationalist.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, 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. Its main sponsor is the AKO Foundation, whose primary focus is the making of grants to projects which promote the arts and improve education.
The 28 countries represented in this year’s eligible entries are: Angola/Cabinda; Botswana; Cameroon; Cote D'Ivoire; Democratic Republic of Congo; Egypt; Ethiopia; Ghana; Kenya; Libya; Malawi; Mauritius; Morocco; Nigeria; Namibia; Rwanda; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Somalia; South Africa; South Sudan; Sri Lanka; Sudan; Tanzania; The Gambia; Uganda; Zambia and Zimbabwe
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. Works translated into English from other languages are not excluded, provided they have been published in translation, and should such a work win, a proportion of the prize would be awarded to the translator.
The African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka and J M Coetzee, are Patrons of the AKO Caine Prize. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is President of the Council, Ben Okri OBE is Vice President, Ellah Wakatama OBE is the Chair and Dele Fatunla is the Administrator.
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), South African Lidudumalingani (2016), Sudanese writer, Bushra al-Fadil (2017), Kenyan Makena Onjerika (2018) and Nigerian Lesley Nneka Arimah (2019).
The AKO Caine Prize anthology comprises the five shortlisted stories alongside stories written at the AKO Caine Prize workshop, and is published each year 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.
The AKO Caine Prize is principally supported by the AKO Foundation, The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The Miles Morland Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, the Booker Prize Foundation, The Sigrid Rausing 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
Pegah Souri
pegah@raittorr.co.uk
020 7922 7719