2 Nigerians make Caine Prize shortlist
Two Nigerians, Lesley Nneka Arimah and Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor, have made the Caine Prize for African Writing for their short stories ‘Skinned’ and ‘All Our Lives’ respectively. Other winners are Meron Hadero (Ethiopia) for ‘The Wall’, Cherrie Kandie (Kenya) for ‘Sew My Mouth’, and Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti (Cameroon) for ‘It Takes A Village Some Say’. […]
2 Nigerians make Caine Prize shortlist
Two Nigerians, Lesley Nneka Arimah and Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor, have made the Caine Prize for African Writing for their short stories ‘Skinned’ and ‘All Our Lives’ respectively.
Other winners are Meron Hadero (Ethiopia) for ‘The Wall’, Cherrie Kandie (Kenya) for ‘Sew My Mouth’, and Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti (Cameroon) for ‘It Takes A Village Some Say’.
Arimah was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in Nigeria. Her stories have been honoured with a National Magazine Award, a Commonwealth Short Story Prize and an O. Henry Award. She was selected for the National Book Foundation’s five Under 35 and her debut collection ‘What It Means When A Man Falls from The Sky’ won the 2017 Kirkus Prize, the 2017 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and was selected for the New York Times/PBS book club among other honours. Arimah is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Writing. She lives in Las Vegas and is working on a novel.
Okafor is a 2018 Rhodes Scholar finalist and a 2018 Kathy Fish Fellow, he has won the 2017 Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction. He has been shortlisted for the 2017 Awele Creative Trust Award, the 2016 Problem House Press Short Story Prize, and the 2016 Southern Pacific Review Short Story Prize. He lives in Pittsburgh, USA, and is at work on a novel and a short story collection.
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.
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 Chairperson, Adam Freudenheim is Deputy Chairperson, and Dele Fatunla is the Administrator of the Prize.
Nigeria’s Helon Habila won the prize in 2001, Segun Afolabi in 2005, EC Osondu in 2009, Rotimi Babatunde in 2012, and Tope Folarin in 2013. Last year’s winner was Kenya’s Makena Onjerika.
The 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.