CAINE PRIZE RELEASES SHORTLIST

The shortlist for the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing was announced on Wednesday 13 May 2009). The Caine Prize, widely known as the ‘African Booker’ and regarded as Africa’s leading literary award, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

Selected from 122 entries from 12 African countries, the shortlist is once again a reflection of the Caine Prize’s pan-African reach. The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 6 July.

The 2009 shortlist comprises:

• Mamle Kabu (Ghana) ‘The End of Skill’ from ‘Dreams, Miracles and Jazz’, published by Picador Africa, Johannesburg 2008
• Parselelo Kantai (Kenya) ‘You Wreck Her’ from the St Petersburg Review, NY 2008
• Alistair Morgan (South Africa) ‘Icebergs’ from The Paris Review no. 183, NY 2008
• EC Osondu (Nigeria) ‘Waiting' from Guernicamag.com, October 2008
• Mukoma wa Ngugi (Kenya) ‘How Kamau wa Mwangi Escaped into Exile’ from ‘Wasafiri’ No54, Summer 2008, London

Two other entries were highly commended: ‘Devils at the Door’ by Sierra Leone’s Brian James, and Ghanaian writer Nii Parkes’s ‘Socks Ball’.

For more information and to read the shortlisted stories click here.