New partnership agreed between The Caine Prize for African Writing and SOAS, University of London

New partnership agreed between The Caine Prize for African Writing and SOAS, University of London

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 May 2019

New partnership agreed between The Caine Prize for African Writing and SOAS, University of London

SOAS to host annual Caine Prize award ceremony for next ten years

London UK, 14 May 2019  -- The Caine Prize for African Writing and SOAS, University of London, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), setting out the arrangements for SOAS to host the annual Caine Prize award dinner for the next ten years. The agreement was signed by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, Chair of The Caine Prize for African Writing, and Baroness Valerie Amos, Director of SOAS, at a ceremony in London on Monday 13 May.

Now in its twentieth year, the Caine Prize was first hosted by SOAS in 2016 as part of the university’s centenary celebrations. Following the event’s success, the Caine Prize award ceremony was hosted again by SOAS in 2017. The MOU ensures this relationship will continue for at least the next ten years, with the two institutions looking for opportunities for closer collaboration throughout that period.

In addition to the annual award ceremony, SOAS will also host a public event with each year’s shortlisted writers, providing an opportunity for anyone with an interest in African literature to get involved in the Caine Prize and hear directly from the authors themselves.

Commenting on the agreement, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, Chair of the Caine Prize, said: “The Caine Prize is grateful to SOAS for the support they have provided over the last two years, and I am delighted that this will continue for the foreseeable future. Central to the ethos of both organisations is the commitment to foster greater awareness, appreciation and understanding of literature and culture from across the African continent, which underpins this historic agreement.”

SOAS Director Baroness Amos said: “We are honoured to continue our collaboration with the Caine Prize and with the talented writers it recognises. At SOAS we have a long history of scholarship, research and teaching in African art and literature. Since the admittance of our first students in 1917, Swahili and Bantu languages have been taught at the School. We look forward to seeing the influence and impact that the next generation of African writers will continue to bring.”

The twentieth winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing will be announced on 8 July at a ceremony in Senate House, hosted by SOAS. The public event with the shortlisted authors will be announced later this year.

[Ends]

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, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE is the Chair, Adam Freudenheim is the Deputy Chairperson 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), and Kenyan, Makena Onjerika (2018).

Each year the five shortlisted stories, alongside stories written at the Caine Prize workshop, are published 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 2018 anthology was titled Redemption Song 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, 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

James Killin
020 7922 7719
james@raittorr.co.uk

Follow us on Twitter (@CainePrize), Facebook, Instagram, and visit our website: www.caineprize.com    

131 eligible submissions from 21 countries entered into the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4 April 2019

131 eligible submissions from 21 countries entered into the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing

The Caine Prize for African Writing, which will announce its twentieth winner this year, has received 131 qualifying submissions from 21 African countries. This year’s entries come from all over the continent, from Angola to Zambia, Liberia and Tanzania, representing a diversity of cultures and perspectives. A full list of countries represented can be found in the Notes to Editors.

The judges will meet in London at the end of April to select the five stories to be included in the 2019 shortlist, and will announce their selection in May. The judging panel will be chaired by Kenyan writer Dr Peter Kimani, author of the critically acclaimed Dance of the Jakaranda. He will be joined by Nigerian playwright Sefi Atta, shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2006; Professor Scott Taylor, Director of the African Studies programme at Georgetown University; internationally renowned author Margie Orford; and Sierra Leone-born journalist Olufemi Terry, who was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2010.

Each writer shortlisted for the 2019 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, Caine Prize Chair Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE said: “To receive year on year such a wide variety of submissions from writers across the continent is testament to the enduring vitality of the Caine Prize, as it celebrates African literature for the twentieth year. I am thrilled to see that we have received entries from Swaziland – first represented in 2017 – again this year, and that the list also includes works from Zambia, Liberia, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. The judges now have the enviable task of reading all the eligible entries and choosing just five stories to be included in this year’s shortlist. I look forward to reading their selection.”

The twentieth winner of the Caine Prize will be announced at an award dinner on Monday 8 July at Senate House, University of London, in partnership with SOAS and with the support of the Centre for African Studies. Senate House has hosted the Caine Prize award ceremony for the past two years.

Since the inception of the Caine Prize, each year the shortlisted stories have been compiled into an official anthology. This is published by New Internationalist in the UK, Interlink Publishing in the USA, and a variety of international publishers around the world.

Last year the anthologies were co-published with partners in nine African countries: ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe), Gadsden Publishers (Zambia), FEMRITE (Uganda), Huza Press (Rwanda), Jacana Media (South Africa), Kwani? (Kenya), Mkuki na Nyota (Tanzania), Lantern Books (Nigeria), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana) and Redsea Cultural Foundation (Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and UAE).
 

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

The Caine Prize – often described as Africa’s leading literary award – is granted annually for African creative writing. It 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 21 countries represented in this year’s eligible submissions are: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, 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 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, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE is the Caine Prize Chair, Adam Freudenheim is Deputy Chairperson, and Dele Fatunla is the Administrator of the Prize.

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 Bushra al-Fadil (2017); and Kenyan Makena Onjerika (2018).

The Caine Prize anthology has been 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.

The Caine Prize is principally supported by 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
James Killin
james@raittorr.co.uk
020 7922 7719

Follow us on Twitter (@CainePrize), Facebook, Instagram, and visit our website: www.caineprize.com    

Our New Chairperson

Caine Prize statement - from the Board of Trustees

Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley, Chair of the Board of Trustees and of the Advisory Council of the Caine Prize, has stepped down from her role at the Caine Prize.

The Board of Trustees would like to thank Delia for her diligence and dedication to the Caine Prize since her appointment in July 2016. The Board pays tribute to Delia for her stewardship of the Caine Prize, recognised as Africa’s leading literary award, in a tenure that saw the annual awards ceremony make a successful transition from the Bodleian Library in Oxford to SOAS, University of London.

At the same time, the Board is pleased to announce that Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, the publisher, critic and broadcaster, and current Trustee of the Caine Prize, has accepted the Board’s invitation to become Chairperson. 

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, President of the Caine Prize, expressed her own appreciation of all that Delia has done to celebrate and amplify the talents of writers from across the African continent. She added: “I particularly valued her chairmanship of the last Prize Dinner, where her exceptional knowledge of African literature was strongly displayed, as was her deep friendship with her fellow authors. I look forward to reading more of her work.”

Baroness Nicholson also expressed her delight that “Ellah has accepted this position at this important time as we enter our 20th anniversary year”.

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, OBE  is the founding Publishing Director of The Indigo Press. She was a judge for the 2017 Dublin International Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. She is former deputy editor of Granta magazine and senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House. She is the editor of Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction. Her journalism has appeared in the Telegraph, Guardian and Observer newspapers and in Spectator and The Griffith Review. She is featured in the 2019 New Daughters of Africa anthology. She is a trustee of The Royal Literary Fund and sits on the Advisory board for Art for Amnesty and the Editorial Advisory Panel of the Johannesburg Review of Books. In 2016 she was Visiting Professor and Global and Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana and Guest Master at the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. 

Caine Prize 2019 Judging Panel Announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
19 December 2018

Caine Prize 2019 Judging Panel Announced

The Caine Prize for African Writing has announced its panel of five judges for 2019. Their decision will be of particular significance in the history of the Caine Prize, which next year marks its 20th anniversary, celebrating two decades of championing, developing and promoting African literature.

Serving as the Chair of Judges is Kenyan author Dr Peter Kimani, whose 2017 novel Dance of the Jakaranda was named as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was nominated for the 2018 Hurston-Wright Legacy Awards.

He will be joined on the judging panel by Sefi Atta, Nigerian author and playwright shortlisted for the 2006 Caine Prize; Margie Orford, acclaimed author hailed as the “queen of South African crime-thriller writers”; Olufemi Terry, Sierra Leone-born author and winner of the 2010 Caine Prize; and Scott Taylor, professor and director of the African Studies Program at Georgetown University, USA.

Collectively, the panel brings a wealth of experience to the judging process, as outlined below:

Full biographies of each judge can be found on our website HERE.

Commenting on the 2019 panel, Chair of the Caine Prize, Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley, said, “We are privileged to benefit from such an esteemed panel of judges, and it is fitting that they will have the honour of deciding the winner of the 20th Caine Prize. I am sure Peter Kimani will make an excellent Chair, and I wish all the judges every success in deciding our shortlist in 2019”.

The deadline for submissions to the 2019 Caine 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. The 2018 Caine Prize was awarded to Makena Onjerika for her short story “Fanta Blackcurrant”, published in Wasafiri (2017). You can read “Fanta Blackcurrant” here.

In addition to works originally in English, publishers are encouraged to submit published translations of work in to English for consideration.

The judging panel will meet to determine which entries will make the shortlist, with an announcement on their selection to be published in May 2019.

For the third time in the 20 year history of the Caine Prize, the award will be announced at Senate House, London, on Monday 8 July, in collaboration with the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

 

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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 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), and Kenyan, Makena Onjerika (2018).

The Caine Prize anthology comprises the five shortlisted stories alongside stories written at the 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 2018 anthology was titled Redemption Song 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, 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.

2019 KEY DATES

May: Shortlist announced
8 July: Winner announced

For more information
Henry Gilliver
henry@raittorr.co.uk
020 7922 7719

Follow us on Twitter (@CainePrize), Facebook, Instagram, and visit our website: www.caineprize.com