Annual Report

THE CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING Always something new from Africa Annual report 2018 Cover artwork adapted by B-Creative from Imigongo pattern from Rwanda – designed by Yves Honore Report on the 2018 Caine Prize and related activities The 2018 shortlisted writers in London, UK, on 2 July. From left: Wole Talabi, Olufunke Ogundimu, Makena Onjerika and Stacy Hardy. Nonyelum Ekwempu, also shortlisted, was unable to attend the award ceremony. The Caine Prize is supported by Other partners include: The British Council, Adam and Victoria Freudenheim, John and Judy Niepold, Rupert and Clare McCammon, the van Agtmael Family Charitable Fund, Arindam Bhattacharjee and other generous donors. 1 Report on the 2018 Caine Prize and related activities Dear Friends, Welcome to our annual report for the year 2018 – a year that has brought some momentous changes for the Prize. We sadly said goodbye to Dr Delia Jarrett- Macauley, who served ably as our Chair for the past two years, and led us through the transition of bringing the annual award ceremony to London from Oxford, where it had been held since its inception in 2000. I am honoured to step into this role as we look ahead to the next two decades of celebrating African literary excellence. It remains an exciting time for African literature and its development, and you will see from these pages that the Caine Prize and our former winners are very much a part of this vibrant culture, with several set to publish novels in the next year. We are glad that in 2018, the Prize maintained its reputation as Africa’s leading literary award. There will no doubt be much to parse about our winner and our shortlist, all outstanding stories that spanned the breadth of literary creativity from and in Africa today – but what is beyond doubt is the talent we celebrate each year. It is important to reiterate that none of our work would be possible without the generous support of you, our funders and partners. We are immensely grateful for this support which enables us to continue to recognise and celebrate extraordinary African literary talent, and for this I thank you, as I do the many people who give us their time and commitment each year. Yours, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE Chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing 2 Report on the 2018 Caine Prize and related activities 2018 Prize and Award Dinner Prize Entries and Shortlist Analysis “A fledgling generation of African writers, shortlisted for Prizes, need readers all over the world to embrace their work” Erica Wagner, T2, The Times The Caine Prize award dinner was held in London, in partnership with SOAS University of London, for only the second time in its history. The event took place at the Beveridge Hall at Senate House on Monday 2 July and welcomed over 150 guests, once again with the generous support of SOAS Director Baroness Amos, Baroness Amos, Director who opened the evening. Harriet Baldwin MP, the British Government’s Minister of SOAS, opening the of State for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, also gave a short award ceremony. address to guests, praising the Prize for building links between the United Kingdom and Africa, while the acclaimed actress Adjoa Andoh read excerpts from each of the shortlisted stories. All dinner guests were given a copy of the latest anthology, titled Redemption Song. The announcement of the winner was delivered by Dinaw Mengestu, Chair of the 2018 judging panel. The Winner: Fanta Blackcurrant This year’s Prize was won by Kenya’s Makena Onjerika for her story ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’, published in Wasafiri (2017). Makena is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing programme at New York University, and has been published in Urban Confustions as well as Wasafiri. She lives in Nairobi, and is currently working on a fantasy novel. She is the fourth Kenyan winner of the Prize. ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’ follows Meri, a street child of Nairobi, who makes a living using her natural intelligence and charisma, but wants nothing more than “a big Fanta Blackcurrant for her to drink every day and it never finish.” While it seems Meri’s wit may enable her to escape the streets, days follow days and years follow years, and having turned to the sex trade, she finds herself pregnant. Her success stealing from Nairobi’s businesswomen attracts the attention of local criminals, who beat her and leave her for dead. After a long recovery, Meri “crossed the river Ben Okri OBE, Vice President and then we do not know where she went.” In his announcement of the win, Chair of the Prize, speaking at the of judges Dinaw Mengestu praised the story – told from the perspective of Meri’s award dinner. fellow street children – as being “as fierce as they come – a narrative forged but not defined by the streets of Nairobi, a story that stands as more than just witness. Makena Onjerika’s ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’ presides over a grammar and architecture of its own making, one that eschews any trace of sentimentality in favour of a narrative that is haunting in its humour, sorrow and intimacy.” 3 Report on the 2018 Caine Prize and related activities The Shortlist The Caine Prize has received submissions from over 40 countries since it was founded, of which 18 countries have been represented in the shortlist. In 2018, we received submissions from Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Prize received a total of 147 entries for this nineteenth edition. The five shortlisted stories and authors selected by the judges were: Nonyelum Ekwempu (Nigeria) for ‘American Dream’, published in Red Rock Review (2016), and republished in The Anthem. Nonyelum is a Nigerian writer and visual artist. She grew up in the bustling city of Lagos and in small villages in southwestern and southeastern Nigeria. Her art is inspired by jazz, the African immigrant experience, and the colours and vibrancy of various African cultures. She is currently a medical student at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. 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). Stacy Hardy is a writer and an editor at the pan-African journal Chimurenga, a founder of Black Ghost Books, and a teacher at Rhodes University, South Africa. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Pocko Times, CTheory, Bengal Lights, Evergreen Review, Drunken Boat, Joyland, Black Sun Lit, and New Orleans Review. A collection of her short fiction, ‘Because the Night’, was published by Pocko Books in 2015. She is currently finalising a second collection to be published in 2019 and is also working on a novella. Olufunke Ogundimu (Nigeria) for ‘The Armed Letter Writers’, published in The African Literary Hustle (2017). Olufunke Ogundimu was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work has been published in Dream Chasers, Nothing to See Here, Red Rock Review, New Orleans Review, and Transition Magazine. She is working on a short story collection reluctantly titled ‘The Was Thing’, and a historical novel set in the twelfth-century Oyo Kingdom, titled ‘Memories of Three Rivers’. Makena Onjerika (Kenya) for ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’, published in Wasafiri (2017). Makena is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing programme at New York University, and has been published in Urban Confustions and Wasafiri. Wole Talabi (Nigeria) for ‘Wednesday’s Story’, published in Lightspeed Magazine (2016). Wole is a full-time engineer, part-time writer and some-time editor with a fondness for science fiction and fantasy. His stories have appeared in publications including Terraform, Omenana, Liquid Imagination, and The Kalahari Review. He edited These Words Expose Us, the anthology of Nigerian blog-site, The Naked Convos. He currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The shortlisted writers were each awarded £500 in recognition of their achievement, and for the fifth time, audio versions of all five shortlisted stories were commissioned and made available via podcasts on the Caine Prize website. All shortlisted writers participated in the programme of public events prior to the award announcement. Harriett Baldwin MP, Minister of State for Africa, with the 2018 shortlisted writers at the award ceremony. 4 Report on the 2018 Caine Prize and related activities Makena Onjerika (centre) with the 2018 Caine Prize judges (L-R) Lola Shoneyin, Dinaw Mengestu, Ahmed Rajab and Henrietta Rose-Innes The Judging Panel The 2018 judging panel was chaired by award-winning novelist Dinaw Mengestu, and he was joined by Lola Shoneyin, award-winning author and Director of the Ake Arts and Books Festival; Professor Ahmed Rajab, a Zanzibar-born international journalist, political analyst and essayist; and South African author Henrietta Rose-Innes, winner of the 2008 Caine Prize. This was the sixth time a Caine Prize alumnus took part in the judging process. “The best short stories have a subtle, almost magical quality to them”, said Dinaw Mengestu of the 2018 entries. “They can contain through the rigour of their imagination and the care of their prose more than just a glimpse into the complicated emotional, political, and social fabric of their characters’ lives. The stories submitted for this year’s Caine Prize contained worlds within them, and nothing was perhaps as remarkable as finding that in story after story, writers across the continent and in the diaspora had laid waste to the idea that certain narratives belonged in the margins.” Winner’s Tour The Library of Congress, Washington, USA As the winner of the 2018 Prize, Makena Onjerika will have the opportunity to take up residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University, and to attend a range of events, including readings at the university, as well as at the Library of Congress.

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