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The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. The £10,000 prize was founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, and was named in memory of Sir Michael Harris Caine, former Chairman of Booker Group plc. Because of the Caine Prize's connection to the Booker Prize, the award is sometimes called the "African Booker". The prize is currently known as the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. The current Chair of the Board is Ellah Wakatama.
Chika Nina Unigwe is a Nigerian-born Igbo author who writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014 she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Previously based in Belgium, she now lives in the United States.
Monica Arac de Nyeko is a Ugandan writer of short fiction, poetry, and essays, living in Nairobi. In 2007 she became the first Ugandan to win the Caine Prize for African Writing, with her story "Jambula Tree". She had previously been shortlisted for the prize in 2004 for "Strange Fruit", a story about child soldiers in Gulu, Northern Uganda. She is a member of FEMRITE – Uganda Women Writers Association and the chief editor of T:AP Voices. She taught literature and English at St. Mary's College Kisubi before proceeding to pursue a Master in Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Groningen. Her personal essay "In the Stars" won first prize in the Women's World, Women in War Zones essay writing competition. She has been published in Memories of Sun, The Nation, IS magazine, Poetry International and several other publications. She is one of the writers announced as part of the Africa39 project unveiled by Rainbow, Hay Festival and Bloomsbury Publishing at the London Book Fair 2014. It is a list of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40.
Mary Watson is a South African author. In 2006 she won the Caine Prize for African Writing and in 2014 was named on the Africa39 list of writers from sub-Saharan Africa aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature.
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is a Kenyan writer. She won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "Weight of Whispers", which considers an aristocratic Rwandan refugee in Kenya. The story was originally published in Kwani?, the Kenyan literary magazine set up by Binyavanga Wainaina after he won the Caine Prize the previous year. In 2004, she won the Woman of the year for her contributions to the arts in Kenya. In September 2015, her critically acclaimed book Dust was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, and won Kenya's pre-eminent literary prize, the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.
Stanley Onjezani Kenani is a Malawian writer of poetry and short stories. He has performed at the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, Poetry Africa in Durban, South Africa, Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) in Harare, Zimbabwe, and at the Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia. He has read with several famous African and world poets, including Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine, Natalie Handal of Palestine/USA, Carolyn Forche of USA, Dennis Brutus of South Africa, Keorapetse Kgositsile of South Africa, Shimmer Chinodya of Zimbabwe, Chirikure Chirikure of Zimbabwe, Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga of Malawi and Alfred Msadala of Malawi among others.
Glaydah Namukasa is a Ugandan writer and midwife. She is the author of two novels, Voice of a Dream and Deadly Ambition. She is a member of FEMRITE, the Ugandan Women Writer's Association, and is currently (2014) its Chairperson. She is one of the 39 African writers announced as part of the Africa39 project unveiled by Rainbow, Hay Festival and Bloomsbury Publishing at the London Book Fair 2014. It is a list of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40.
Zukiswa Wanner is a South African journalist, novelist and editor born in Zambia and now based in Kenya. Since 2006, when she published her first book, her novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards (SALA) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2015, she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for London Cape Town Joburg (2014). In 2014 Wanner was named on the Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. In 2020 she was awarded the Goethe Medal alongside Ian McEwan and Elvira Espejo Ayca, making Wanner the first African woman to win the award.
Rotimi Babatunde is a Nigerian writer and playwright.
Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL, is Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. She was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press. A London-based editor and critic, she was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, she was Visiting Professor & Global Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana, and was Guest Master for the 2016 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation international journalism fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. The former deputy editor of Granta magazine, she was senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and assistant editor at Penguin. She is series editor of the Kwani? Manuscript Project and the editor of the anthologies Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.
Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer and Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Studies. He won the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story "Miracle". In April 2014 he was named in the Hay Festival's Africa39 project as one of the 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and the talent to define the trends of the region. His story "Genesis" was shortlisted for the 2016 Caine Prize.
Africa39 was a collaborative project initiated by the Hay Festival in partnership with Rainbow Book Club, celebrating Port Harcourt: UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 by identifying 39 of the most promising writers under the age of 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in the development of literature from Africa and the African diaspora. Launched in 2014, Africa39 followed the success of two previous Hay Festival initiatives linked to World Book Capital cities, Bogotá39 (2007) and Beirut39 (2009).
Nyana Kakoma is a Ugandan writer, editor, blogger, and publisher from Kampala. She created the online platform Sooo Many Stories that promotes Ugandan literature. She formerly wrote under her maiden name Hellen Nyana. She is one of the facilitators of Writivism in Kampala 2015. She took part in "Bremen & Kampala – Spaces of Transcultural Writing", a collaboration between writers from Uganda and Bremen. She is a member of Femrite. In February 2015, she was awarded an editorial fellowship at Modjaji Books by the African Writers Trust and Commonwealth Writers. A number of her articles have appeared in newspapers. She attended the Caine Prize workshop 2013, and her story "Chief Mourner" was published in the Caine Prize anthology A Memory This Size and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2013.
Ukamaka Evelyn Olisakwe is a Nigerian feminist author, short-story writer, and screenwriter. In 2014 she was chosen as one of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40, showcased in the Africa39 project and included in the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara.
Harriet Anena is a Ugandan writer and performer, whose writing includes poetry, nonfiction and fiction. She is the author of a collection of poems, A Nation In Labour, published in 2015, won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Anena's poetry has been described as "highly evocative and visual". The Economist described her poetry performance as "an arresting evocation of love and war". In 2019, Short Story Day Africa Prize founder Rachel Zadok said: [Anena] has an unexpected onstage persona that is only given away by the twinkle of mischief in the eye of the quiet woman one meets off-stage. A twinkle one soon learns the meaning of when she performs her work. It means humour, it means power. Anena is a feminine force of nature that takes no prisoners. Feminist. Scathing. Sensitive. Sharp. She has no blurred edges. Her prose is not like a knife, it is the blade that cuts into the patriarchy and incises its scars from the female body."
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a Nigerian creative writer and journalist. He was described by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle as a northern Nigerian "literary provocateur" amidst the international acclaim his award-winning novel Season of Crimson Blossoms received in 2016.
Carla Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Her short story "The Sack" won the 2015 Caine Prize for African fiction in English. In 2020, Serpell won the Belles-lettres category Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2019 for her novel The Old Drift.
Hawa Jande Golakai is a Liberian writer and clinical scientist. In 2014 she was chosen as one of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40, showcased in the Africa39 project and included in the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara.
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwean writer and professor of creative writing. She is the author of Shadows, a novella and House of Stone, a novel.
Makena Onjerika is a Kenyan writer, who won the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing making her the fourth writer from her country to do so—following wins by Binyavanga Wainaina in 2002 and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor in 2003, and Okwiri Oduor in 2013.
References
- ↑ "Okwiri Oduor wins fifteenth Caine Prize for African Writing". The Caine Prize for African Writing. July 14, 2013. Archived from the original on 18 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
- ↑ "Africa39 Authors' biographies" (PDF). Hay Festival. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 July 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
- ↑ "Spotlight: Okwiri Oduor", Africa39 Blog.
- ↑ "Reading the Africa39 Anthology: 'Rag Doll' by Okwiri Oduor", Africa39 Blog.
- 1 2 "Hay Festival". Hayfestival.com. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
- ↑ Lee, Felicia R. (15 July 2014). "Okwiri Oduor Wins Caine Prize for African Writing". The New York Times . Retrieved 28 September 2014.
- ↑ Enjoli Liston (14 July 2014). "Okwiri Oduor wins 2014 Caine Prize for African writing". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
