The fifteenth annual Caine Prize workshop is being held in Tanzania for the first time, and the 2017 anthology of short stories, 12 of which are written during the workshop, will be co-published by Tanzanian Company Mkuki na Nyota, in partnership with New Internationalist - who provide a print-ready pdf to African co-publishers free of charge. Mkuki Bgoya has been commissioned to design the cover of the anthology, which in 2017 will be co-published in 16 African countries, including Rwanda for the first time, with Huza Press. In addition the Redsea Cultural Foundation will co-publish the anthology in Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and UAE.
Caine Prize receives 148 entries from 22 African countries
In its eighteenth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing has received 148 qualifying short stories from 22 African countries, bringing the total number of eligible submissions since the inception of the Prize to over 1,600 from 47 African countries.
The 2017 judges, who were announced at the end of last year, will meet in mid May to decide on the 5 shortlisted stories. Each shortlisted writer will be awarded £500, with the eventual winner awarded a £10,000 prize.
Tribute to Buchi Emecheta (1944 – 2017)
Caine Prize 2017 Judging Panel Announced
The Caine Prize for African Writing has announced the five judges for the 2017 Prize. The panel will be chaired by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, award winning author, poet and editor. He will be joined by the 2007 Caine Prize winner, Monica Arac de Nyeko; accomplished author and Chair of the English Department at Georgetown University, Professor Ricardo Ortiz; Libyan author and human rights campaigner, Ghazi Gheblawi; and distinguished African literary scholar, Dr Ranka Primorac.
New Chair of Trustees
Lidudumalingani wins seventeenth Caine Prize for African Writing
For Immediate Release
Monday, 4 July 2016
Lidudumalingani has won the 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for his short story entitled 'Memories We Lost' published in Incredible Journey: Stories That Move You (Burnet Media, South Africa, 2015). The Chair of Judges, Delia Jarrett-Macauley, announced Lidudumalingani as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held this evening (Monday, 4 July) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
‘Memories We Lost’ tells the emotionally charged story of a girl who acts as protector of her sister, whose serious mental-health problems cause consternation in a South African village. Her situation deteriorates as her care is entrusted to Nkunzi, a local man who employs traditional techniques to rid people of their demons.
Delia Jarrett-Macauley praised the story, saying, "The winning story explores a difficult subject - how traditional beliefs in a rural community are used to tackle schizophrenia. this is a troubling piece, depicting the great love between two young siblings in a beautifully drawn Eastern Cape. Multi-layered, and gracefully narrated, this short story leaves the reader full of sympathy and wonder at the plight of its protagonists".
Lidudumalingani is a writer, filmmaker and photographer. He was born in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, in a village called Zikhovane. Lidudumalingani has published short stories, non-fiction and criticism in various publications. His films have been screened at a number of film festivals.
Lidudumalingani's story 'Memories We Lost' is available here.
Lidudumalingani was joined on the 2016 shortlist by:
• Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) for ‘What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky’ published in Catapult (Catapult, USA, 2015).
Read ‘What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky’
• Tope Folarin (Nigeria) for ‘Genesis’ published in Callaloo (Johns Hopkins University Press, USA, 2014).
Read ‘Genesis’
• Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe) for ‘At Your Requiem’ published in Incredible Journey: Stories That Move You (Burnet Media, South Africa, 2015).
Read ‘At Your Requiem’
•Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya) for ‘The Lifebloom Gift’ published in The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 (New Internationalist, United Kingdom, 2014)
Read ‘The Lifebloom Gift’
The panel of judges was chaired by Delia Jarrett-Macauley – member of the Caine Prize Council and judge for the 2007 Caine Prize for African Writing. She is the author of the literary biographyThe life of Una Marson 1905-1965, and of the Orwell prize-winning novel Moses, Citizen and Me (2005).
Alongside Delia on the panel of judges are: acclaimed film, television and theatre actor, Adjoa Andoh; writer and founding member of the Nairobi-based writers’ collective, Storymoja, and founder of the Storymoja Festival, Muthoni Garland; Associate Professor and Director of African American Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC, Dr Robert J Patterson; and South African writer and 2006 Caine Prize winner, Mary Watson.
Once again the winner of the Caine Prize will be given the opportunity to take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The winner will also be invited to speak at the Library of Congress. Each shortlisted writer will also receive £500. The winner is invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town, Storymoja in Nairobi and Ake Festival in Abeokuta, Nigeria.
Last year the Caine Prize was won by Zambian writer Namwali Serpell. Namwali is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley English department. Her first book of literary criticism, Seven Modes of Uncertainty, was published in 2014. Since winning the Caine Prize, the world rights to Namwali’s first book of fiction, The Old Drift, were pre-empted and it will be published by Hogarth in the US and Chatto and Windus in the UK.
The New Internationalist 2016 anthology is now published and it includes all of the shortlisted stories along with 12 other short stories written at the Caine Prize 2016 workshop in Zambia. You can buy the anthology at https://newint.org/books/fiction/caine-prize-2016/. The anthology is supplied as a print ready pdf to 8 African co-publishers.
-Ends-
Notes to Editors
About the Caine Prize
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, Jonathan Taylor CBE is the Chairman, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE is the Deputy Chairperson and Dr Lizzy Attree is the Director.
Full biographies of the shortlistees are available at http://caineprize.com/2016-shortlist/
Full biographies of the 2016 judges are available at https://caineprize.com/the-judges-2016
This year 166 short stories from writers representing 23 African countries were received and entered into the 2016 Caine Prize before they were whittled down to the final 5. Last year 153 qualifying stories were submitted to the judges from 17 countries.
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 Tope Folarin (2013), Kenyan Okwiri Oduor (2014); and Zambian Namwali Serpell (2015).
The five shortlisted stories, alongside stories written at Caine Prize workshop held in Zambia in March 2016, are published annually by New Internationalist (UK), Jacana Media (South Africa), LanternBooks (United States), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), Bookworld Publishers (Zambia), Langaa Research and Publishing (Cameroon) and amaBooks (Zimbabwe). Books are available from the publishers or from the Africa Book Centre, African Books Collective or Amazon.
The Caine Prize is supported by The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The Miles Morland Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Booker Prize Foundation, Sigrid Rausing and Eric Abraham, The British Council, The Wyfold Charitable Trust, the Royal Over-Seas League, Imara, Adam and Victoria Freudenheim, John and Judy Niepold, Arindam Bhattacharjee and other generous donors.
For more information:
Henry Gilliver
Account Manager
Raitt Orr & Associates
+44(0) 20 7922 7719
+44(0) 77252 50052
Seventeenth Caine Prize shortlist announced
The five-writer shortlist for the 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced by Chair of judges, writer and academic, Delia Jarrett-Macauley. The 2016 shortlist includes a former Caine Prize winner and a former regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Delia Jarrett-Macauley described the shortlist as, ‘an engrossing, well-crafted and dauntless pack of stories.’
‘The high standard of the entries was clear throughout and particularly noteworthy was the increasing number of fantasy fictions [with] the sci-fi trend resonating in several excellent stories. My fellow judges commented on the pleasure of reading the stories, the gift of being exposed to the exciting short fictions being produced by African writers today and the general shift away from politics towards more intimate subjects – though recent topics such as the Ebola crisis were being wrestled with.’
She added, ‘It was inspiring to note the amount of risk-taking in both subject matter and style, wild or lyrical voices matching the tempered measured prose writers, and stories tackling uneasy topics, ranging from an unsettling, unreliable narrator’s tale of airport scrutiny, to a science-fictional approach towards the measurement of grief, a young child’s coming to grips with family dysfunction, the big drama of rivalling siblings and the silent, numbing effects of loss.’
‘The panel is proud to have shortlisted writers from across the continent, finding stories that are compelling, well-crafted and thought-provoking.’
The 2016 shortlist comprises:
Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya) for ‘The Lifebloom Gift’ published in The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 (New Internationalist, United Kingdom, 2014)
Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) for ‘What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky’ published in Catapult (Catapult, USA, 2015)
Read ‘What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky’
Tope Folarin (Nigeria) for ‘Genesis’ published in Callaloo (Johns Hopkins University Press, USA, 2014)
Folarin won the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing
Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe) for ‘At Your Requiem’ published in Incredible Journey: Stories That Move You (Burnet Media, South Africa, 2015)
Lidudumalingani (South Africa) for ‘Memories We Lost’ published in Incredible Journey: Stories That Move You (Burnet Media, South Africa, 2015)
The full panel of judges, joining Delia Jarrett-Macauley, includes acclaimed film, television and theatre actor, Adjoa Andoh; writer and founding member of the Nairobi-based writers’ collective, Storymoja, and founder of the Storymoja Festival, Muthoni Garland; Associate Professor and Director of African American Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC, Dr Robert J Patterson; and South Africanwriter and 2006 Caine Prize winner, Mary Watson.
The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced at an award ceremony and dinner at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, on Monday 4 July. Each shortlisted writer will also receive £500.
Each of these stories will be published in New Internationalist’s Caine Prize 2016 Anthology in July and through co-publishers across Africa, who receive a print-ready PDF free of charge from New Internationalist.
Notes to Editors
About the Caine Prize
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, Jonathan Taylor CBE is the Chairman, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE is the Deputy Chairperson and Dr Lizzy Attree is the Director.