Original blog by Daniel Musiitwa at africabookclub.com

A total of 96 stories will compete for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. The winner will be announced in May this year and stands to receive a cash prize of  $15,000.  Rotimi Babatunde (pictured) was last year’s winner with his short story, Bombay’s Republic.

The judges for this year’s prize include Leila Aboulela, award winning Sudanese-born author and winner of the inaugural Caine Prize. This is the first time that a past winner of the Caine Prize will take part in the judging. The judging panel is chaired by art historian and broadcaster Dr Gus Casely-Hayford.
Other members of the panel include Aboulela, award-winning Nigerianborn artist, Sokari Douglas Camp; author, columnist and Lord Northcliffe Emeritus Professor at UCL, John Sutherland; Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, Professor Nathan Hensley.
The judges will meet in early May to decide on the shortlisted stories, which will be announced shortly thereafter.

The winning story will be announced at a dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford on Monday 8 July. The five shortlisted stories, alongside the stories written at the Caine Prize workshops are published annually by New Internationalist (UK), Jacana Media (South Africa), Cassava Republic (Nigeria), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), Bookworld Publishers (Zambia) and ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe).

Included in the 2012 anthology is the story by last year’s Nigerian winner, Rotimi Babatunde. Chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo said at the time, “Bombay’s Republic vividly describes the story of a Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma campaign of World War Two. It is ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of Independence.”

The Caine Prize 2013 book will be available from mid-June. It will comprise the 5 shortlisted stories and 12 stories from the Caine Prize Writers’ Workshop.