Twenty Years of The Caine Prize for African Writing

A jailer’s love poems ghost-written by a prisoner… Love blossoming between two girls despite the horror of their community… Street kids stick-fighting or stealing guavas from the rich… A dystopian world where women must go naked until they marry… Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Caine Prize for African Writing – often referred to as the ‘African Booker Prize’ – this collection showcases all twenty prize-winning short stories, each with its own unique take on modern African life.

As Ben Okri says, in his special introduction for this anthology: ‘Whether in the cities or in the villages, whether it is in East or West or South or North Africa, something pulses through the varied and oddly unified life of the continent that lends itself to the framing that the short story excels at. Whether it is the celebration, the marketplace, the bus stop, the ritual, the family, the funeral, comradeship, grisly death, sexual awakening, the short story catches the experience, holds it at an angle, illuminates it.’

This celebratory collection includes:
Leila Aboulela, Sudan, 2000
Helon Habila, Nigeria, 2001
Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenya, 2002
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Kenya, 2003
Brian Chikwava, Zimbabwe, 2004
Segun Afolabi, Nigeria, 2005
Mary Watson South, Africa, 2006
Monica Arac de Nyeko, Uganda, 2007
Henrietta Rose-Innes, South Africa, 2008
EC Osondu, Nigeria, 2009
Olufemi Terry, Sierra Leone, 2010
NoViolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 2011
Rotimi Babatunde, Nigeria, 2012
Tope Folarin, Nigeria, 2013
Okwiri Oduor, Kenya, 2014
Namwali Serpell, Zambia, 2015
Lidudumalingani, South Africa, 2016
Bushra al-Fadil, Sudan, 2017
Makena Onjerika, Kenya, 2018
Lesley Nneka Arimah, Nigeria, 2019

The Caine Prize was launched in 2000 to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally. The focus on the short story reflects the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition. The Prize is known as the ‘African Booker’ (and is named after the Booker Prize founder, Michael Caine) and for the past twenty years has showcased writers who go on to successfully achieve great literary success, such as Leila Aboulela, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Brian Chikwava and NoViolet Bulawayo.