This years AKO Caine Prize will be announced on Monday 18th July 2022, at the Victoria & Albert Musuem in London. The event will coincide with the Africa Fashion Exhibition– which “explores the vitality and global impact of a fashion scene as dynamic and varied as the continent itself.“ Prior to the award ceremony, the shortlisted writers will tour the United Kingdom with major stops at the National Centre for Writing and the University of East Anglia in Norwich and, in London, Candid Club and Independent Bookshop Liberia.
The five shortlisted authors for the 2022 Prize are;
Joshua Chizoma (Nigeria) for ‘Collector of Memories’,
Nana-Ama Danquah (Ghana) for ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’,
Hannah Giorgis (Ethiopia) for ‘A Double-Edged Inheritance’,
Idza Luhumyo (Kenya) for ‘Five Years Next Sunday’, and
Billie McTernan (Ghana) for ‘The Labadi Sunshine Bar’.
The winner will receive a cash award of £10,000 and each of the other writers on the shortlist £500.
The Caine Prize is an annual literary award for short stories by African writers, regardless of their location, published in English with an indicative length of 3,000 to 10,000 words. Founded on 2000, and named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former chair of the Booker Prize for nearly twenty-five years, the purpose of the Prize is “to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally.” And to a great extent it has achieved this goal.
It has launched the writing careers of many writers such as Leila Aboulela, Lesley Nneka Arimah , and Namwali Serpell, to name but a few. Previous winners such as NoViolet Bulawayo and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor have gone on to publish multiple critically acclaimed novels. The prize money itself is significant, it enabled Binyavanga Wainana (sadly gone, but not forgotten) to launch Kwani? which did wonders for the Kenyan literary scene.
Not only has it kept a spotlight on writing from the African continent, it has given many writers that would have otherwise remained obscure a platform to showcase their talent and has brought their writing to a broader audience. Moreover, the annual Anthology containing the stories written by authors from across the continent at Caine Prize workshops, which are published alongside the Prize’s shortlisted stories, has given readers worldwide a taste of the diversity and talent coming out of Africa.
The Prize is of course not without its critics. Some question the inclusion of Africans in the diaspora whilst others argue that it is biased towards stories that stereotype Africa, and that with it being based in the UK that it reinforces Western expectations on African writers. In his article The 2011 Caine Prize: How Not to Write About Africa, Ikhide R. Ikheloa argued that “The creation of a Prize for African writing may have created the unintended effect of breeding writers willing to stereotype Africa for glory.”
And with publishing houses pledging to be more diverse following George Floyd’s murder and the BlackLivesMatter campaign, glocalisation, and the increase in the number of black run publishing houses and literary magazines one would wonder if the Caine Prize is still relevant. Sadly, it is. The international exposure that it brings to writers on the shortlist and the prize money is remains unmatched. Despite its shortcomings, the Prize plays a significant role in promoting African writing and writers unveiling them to the world and making their work available to a different and broader audience.
African writers still face many challenges and a career in publishing remains an uphill struggle for many who find it hard to publish their work and have to choose between writing and work that will put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. In the process, many writers with great stories remain anonymous. The AKO Caine Prize has successfully brought many African writers to a wider audience through its annual prizes and publications. To remain relevant, it should consider working with more grassroots movements to provide reading materials, and afford the people on the continent about whom the stories are often written access to these stories.
Past winners of the Caine Prize include Sudan’s Leila Aboulela (2000), Nigerian Helon Habila (2001), Kenyan Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Kenyan Yvonne Owuor (2003), Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava (2004), Nigerian Segun Afolabi (2005), South African Mary Watson (2006), Ugandan Monica Arac (2007), South African Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008), Nigerian EC Osondu (2009), Sierra Leonean Olufemi Terry (2010), Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo (2011), Nigerian Rotimi Babatunde (2012), Nigerian Tope Folarin (2013), Kenyan Okwiri Oduor (2014), Zambian Namwali Serpell (2015), South African Lidudumalingani (2016), Sudanese Bushra al-Fadil (2017), Kenyan Makena Onjerika (2018), Nigerian Lesley Nneka Arimah (2019), Nigerian-British Irenosen Okojie (2020), and Ethiopian Meron Hadero (2021).