Earlier this month, the shortlist for the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing was announced. Of the five writers in the list, four are women. All the writers exude a wealth of diversity in their body of work and talent. Dinaw Mengestu, an ward-winning Ethiopian-American author, is this year’s Chair of judges.
The Caine Prize 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. It is awarded annually for African creative writing.
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 shortlisted writers for the 2018 Caine Prize are:
- Makena Onjerika (Kenya) for ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’, published in Wasafiri (2017).
- Nonyelum Ekwempu (Nigeria) for ‘American Dream’, published in Red Rock Review (2016) and republished in The Anthem (2016).
- Stacy Hardy (South Africa) for ‘Involution’, published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa, co-published by Short Story Day Africa and New Internationalist (2017).
- Olufunke Ogundimu (Nigeria) for ‘The Armed Letter Writers’, published in The New Orleans Review (The African Literary Hustle, 2017).
- Wole Talabi (Nigeria) for ‘Wednesday’s Story’, published in Lightspeed Magazine (2016).
The award ceremony and dinner will be held in the Beveridge Hall at Senate House, SOAS, on Monday 2 July 2018 – in partnership with the Centre for African Studies. The winner takes home £10,000. Each shortlisted writer will also receive £500.
Look out for the shortlisted stories in June in New Internationalist’s 2018 Caine Prize anthology, Redemption Song, and through co-publishers in 16 African countries who receive a print-ready PDF free of charge.
Congratulations to the winners!
