Three Nigerians have been shortlisted for the 2018 Caine prize for African Writing. They are Nonyelum Ekwempu for ‘American Dream’, Olufunke Ogundimu for ‘The Armed Letter Writers’ and Wole Talabi for ‘Wednesday’s Story’. Other shortlisted writers include South Africa’s Stacy Hardy for her short story, ‘Involution’ and Kenya’s Makena Onjerika for ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’.
The five-writer shortlist was unveiled by this Chair of judges, award-winning Ethiopian-American author and former Lannan Foundation Chair in Poetics at Georgetown University, Dinaw Mengestu.
Mengestu said: “The best short stories have a subtle, almost magical quality to them.
“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.
“The politics and aesthetics of gender, sexuality, corruption and silence were a constant presence throughout many of the stories submitted, particularly those on our shortlist.
“These five remarkable narratives are proof that nowhere is the complexity and diversity of Africa and African lives more evident than in the stories we tell,” Mengestu said.
On the 2018 judging panel are Henrietta Rose-Innes, South African author and winner of the 2008 Caine Prize; Lola Shoneyin.
Others include award-winning author and Director of the Ake Arts and Books Festival, Nigeria; and Ahmed Rajab, a Zanzibar-born international journalist, political analyst and essayist.
The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced at an award ceremony and dinner in the Beveridge Hall at Senate House, SOAS, London on July 2.
The prize is in partnership with the Centre for African Studies and each shortlisted writer will also receive £500.
The shortlisted stories will be published 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.
