The question that I have been asked most frequently is ‘What is it like judging a prize?’ The answer is: it is a privilege but also emotionally taxing. You want to honour the hard work and creativity that went into the writing of each short story. Ten stories in (there were 230 stories eligible), you realise, with heartbreaking clarity, that there will be far, far more worthy stories than there are finalist slots. [It is here that I found Petina Gappah’s essay particularly helpful. Dear Tete Petina: I Am Not on the Caine Prize ShortlistBy Petina Gappah (brittlepaper.com)  I – we – could n ..read more

Jonty Driver, who has died aged 83, was in every way a large and impressive presence on the Advisory Council of The Caine Prize, joining it at its inception and only resigning from it in 2020.  Jonty was a big man physically: this was always the first thing anybody said about him when they first met him.  Within a short while, however, they would be saying he was a big man morally.  He was never afraid to speak his mind, even when he felt that the balance of opinion might be going against him. Jonty had the right background for speaking up, having served in 1963 and 1964 as pre ..read more

The name of Ama Ata Aidoo deserves to feature high on any list of influential Anglophone African writers, particularly notable for giving a perspective on women to be found nowhere else. She made her mark not only as an author – with plays, novels, short stories, poetry and essays – but also as a politician, an academic and an activist. Holding strong Pan-Africanist views, she was fearlessly outspoken about the centuries of exploitation of Africa's resources and peoples (as can be heard in a video clip about imperialism that went viral), and always made it clear that she learned her first fem ..read more

Dear Friends and Colleagues, I hope this finds you well. I am sure many of you will know that we are moving to a digital process as the main way of accepting entries to the Caine Prize for African Writing; as this is the first year we are utilising an online entry process for the prize, alongside a number of internal matters within the prize we aim to resolve soon - we hope you will assist us in the process of receiving entries online for the first time by undertaking the following three steps: Submitting your entries via the entry form provided here - which can also be accessed via this li ..read more

As we approach the announcement of the 2020 Winner of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, celebrating the best short stories as chosen by our panel of judges, we find ourselves in a world in turmoil, flux and increasing polarisation.  Our creative community and the wider society are engaged in the discussion of important issues of race, discrimination, gender, identity, and equality - issues often embraced by our writers’ stories. These are important conversations and it is a time to affirm values we hold close. We at the AKO Caine Prize stand firmly on the side of equality. The AKO ..read more

Apartheid in South Africa: As a car burns behind him, a young South African participates in a civil disturbance outside the Auduza Cemetery. [1985] - UN Photo The coronavirus crisis has upended our world.  In January this year, the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – fast forward three months and the disease has spread across the world. In these unprecedented times, social distancing guidelines imposed by governments around the globe to combat the spread of this virus have resulted in all of us adapting to new way ..read more

COVID-19 - AKO Caine Prize for African Writing 2020 Dinner postponed Monday 23 March 2020 – After the latest government measures to slow down the spread of Coronavirus, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the AKO Caine Prize dinner due to take place on Tuesday 23 June to a later more appropriate date, which will be announced as soon as possible. The current situation is directly impacting all events leading up to our award ceremony, including the judges’ meeting to select a shortlist, and the travel of our as-of-yet unknown shortlisted writers. Traditionally our shortlisted writer ..read more

Dear Friends, I hope this email meets you well. It’s been a busy time for us over here at the Caine Prize and we are excited to catch up with you and let you know what we’ve been up to over the last weeks. New Partnership I’m sure that most of you have noticed something very exciting, our name has changed! At the end of January we were thrilled to announce a new partnership with the AKO foundation, a London based charity supporting projects which promote the arts, improve education or mitigate climate problems. As part of the agreement, the Prize becomes the AKO Caine Prize for African Writin ..read more

We hope you’ve had a good start to 2020, we can’t believe it’s almost the end of January, Christmas seems like a distant memory doesn’t it? If you made New Year’s Resolutions, we hope that you are having success keeping to them. Over here at the Caine Prize we didn’t make any resolutions as such but we did make a resolve that in 2020  communicating with our supporters and with the wider literary community would remain a priority for us, and in this vein we would like to include a regular round up of literary news in our communications with a particular focus on literary news from Africa a ..read more

Leila Aboulela (2000, Caine Prize Winner), Helon Habila (2001, Caine Prize Winner), Binyavanga Wainana (2002, Caine Prize Winner), Yvonne Owuor (2003, Caine Prize Winner), Brian Chikwava, 2004, Caine Prize Winner), Segun Afolabi, (2005, Caine Prize Winner), Mary Watson, (2006, Caine Prize Winner), Monica Arac de Nyeko (2007, Caine Prize Winner), Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008, Caine Prize Winner), E.C. Osondu (2009, Caine Prize, Winner), Olufemi Terry, (2010, Caine Prize, Winner), NoViolet Bulawayo (2011, Caine Prize, Winner), Rotimi Babatunde (2012, Caine Prize Winner), Tope Folarin (2013, Caine ..read more