Caine Prize Shortlist 2007 Announced

Nigeria features prominently in the eighth Caine Prize for African Writing, producing three of the five shortlisted writers for this year’s competition. But with entries received from North, South, East and West Africa, the Caine Prize has once again proven its pan-African outreach. The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday, 9 July.

The 2007 shortlist comprises:

Uwem Akpan (Nigeria), ‘My Parents Bedroom’ The New Yorker June 12, 2006


Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda), ‘Jambula Tree’ from ‘African Love Stories’ Ayebia Clarke Publishing 2006


E.C Osondu (Nigeria) ‘Jimmy Carter’s Eyes’, AGNI Fiction Online 2006


Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa) ‘Bad Places’, New Contrast vol 31 no4 Spring 2003


Ada Udechukwu (Nigeria) ‘Night Bus’, The Atlantic Monthly, August 2006


In addition the judges highly commended Kenyan Billy Kahora’s ‘Treadmill Love’ from ‘The Obituary Tango’ Jacana/New Internationalist 2006.

“The range of this year's shortlist confirms that writers are testing the limits of what subjects they can address. From modern folk tales to social alienation, violent crime and sexual orientation. It is a welcome development”, commented Jamal Majhoub, the Chair for the 2007 judging panel. Jamal, who was born in London and bought up in Khartoum, has published seven novels, which have been translated into many languages. His numerous awards include the Mario Vargos Llosa Premio NH de Relatos in 2006 and he has previously been shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2004 with The Obituary Tango, from Wasafiri.

The judging panel this year also includes Kenyan academic, critic and writer Dr Wangui wa Goro, award winning novelist Delia Jarett-Macauley, South African poet and novelist Jonty Driver and  former Zed Books Managing Editor, Robert Molteno.

As announced earlier this year, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize, known as the ‘African Booker’, will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC, as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

Last year’s winner was South African Mary Watson, for Jungfrau, from ‘Moss’, Kwela Books, 2004. Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe commented that Jungfrau was “a powerfully written narrative that works skilfully through a child’s imagination to suggest a world of insights about familial and social relationships in the new South Africa”. Mary is now working on her first novel in Cape Town.

Other previous winners include 2005’s winner S.A.Afolabi from Nigeria for Monday Morning from Wasafiri (2004), later published in his first collection of short stories, A Life Elsewhere, his first novel Goodbye Lucille is due to be published this summer. Helon Habila, Caine Prize 2001 winner, described as a ‘major novelist in the making’, has just published his second novel, [i]Measuring Time[/i]. Binyavanga Wainaina, who won the Caine Prize in 2002 is the founding editor of the literary magazine, Kwani? and is currently working on a memoir which is to be published by Granta Books.

This year the short listed writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Over-Seas League on Friday, 6 July at 7pm and at the South Bank Centre literary festival on Sunday, 8 July at 8:15 pm. There will also be a seminar at the Institute for English Studies, Senate House, University of London, on Wednesday, 11 July at 1.30pm.

Abigail Cochrane
Raitt Orr & Associates Ltd    

Tel:      020 7630 9778
Fax:     020 7630 5067
E-mail: abigail@raittorr.com
Nick Elam
The Caine Prize for African Writing  

Tel:       +44 (0) 20 7378 6234
Fax:     +44 (0) 20 7378 6235
E-mail: info@caineprize.com
Web:    www.caineprize.com

I wont be surprised if Uwem Akpan takes home the prize. Lets see what goes on.

Ndipe:

I wont be surprised if Uwem Akpan takes home the prize. Lets see what goes on.

Have you read the stories of Uwem Akpan?

Osondu is a good short story writer.

I am very proud of my fellow writers and how we are the leaders in Africa.

We dominate the rest of Africa in most literary competitions.

No I havent read Uwem's short stories, (I am not big on short story fiction), but they have been anthologized in the New Yorker Magazine, considered to be one of the prestigious literary magazines in the USA.

Why you no enter the contest? There are some fine writers on this board who probably stand a chance of being either longlisted or shortlisted for the prize.

Ndipe,
All right.

Only publishers can submit the works of their authors for the Caine Prize.
Helon Habila's self published short story won by divine providence.

I got my first reputable American publishers this year and they will submit one of my recently published short stories for the 2008 Caine Prize.

I am going to win the Caine Prize and other prizes.
I need the fame and fortune, because I have so many dependants who are needy and I need more money for the charities I support.

The fact is, I left my artworks and writings behind and spent 11 years on evangelism with the Deeper Life Christian Church and the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and only returned to active creative writing in 2000.
I wrote my best works between 1980 and 1990.
I began preaching the gospel in 1989 and in 2000, I relaxed and returned to active writings. Seven of my abandoned novels have been destroyed and I am challenged to rewrite them. Because, most of them are historical novels. The following are the titles of my lost and destroyed novels:

1. Man of the Earth, 480 pages, set in Umuda Nsigwu, Uhuhun, Umuahia, Abia state, Nigeria.
Covered the period between 1900 and 1970, including Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War.

2. Revolt in the Ranch, 153 pages, described by Maja-Pearce of Heinemann's African Writers series as an American Animal Farm.
Set in America during the American civil war.

3. The Call of the Maquis, 220 pages
on the romance between a young male African student from Ivory Coast with a young French woman of noble birth during (World War II), and how a he joined the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis.

4. A Man of the Rivers, 188 pages, on a village chief and politician in Rivers State, during the Second Republic in Nigeria  

5. Love in 1004, 200 pages, on the escapades of the legislators at the 1004 quarters on the Victoria Island in Lagos, during the Second Republic. How a randy legislator got his son's girlfriend pregnant.

6. Lamentations in Maroko, 165 pages, on the demolition of the Maroko shanties in the 1980s.

7. Son of a Beggar, 240 pages, on how the Hausa Fulani son of a beggar from the North to Lagos and how he was able to overcome penury and went to the Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

With 6 websites and over 24 blogs, and some published works so far, I know I am fully back. But, most of the members of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) are still behind time and are still struggling with getting published.

The best writers of the new generation in Nigeria have not been celebrated.

The fallacy and hypocrisy of the Nigerian society show their intellectual ignorance.
Must our writers win prizes before they can be appreciated?

Orikinla:

The best writers of the new generation in Nigeria have not been celebrated.

The fallacy and hypocrisy of the Nigerian society show their intellectual ignorance.
Must our writers win prizes before they can be appreciated?

@Orikinla,

Well Said Mate.

SMC:

@Orikinla,

Well Said Mate.

SMC,

The fact that since Ben Okri won the Booker Prize over 10 years ago and the Nigerian society or government did not honour him shows the low level of our art appreciation. And the Nigerian government did not even celebrate the recent achievements of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Pa Chinua Achebe. And they spend over $1 milllion to promote the Nigeria: Heart of Africa image project on the CNN and other foreign media without much success.

Notable Nigerian novelists from Eastern Nigeria are engaged in the ruling government, but they are more interested in selfish contracts than celebrating their fellow writers.
Only Prof. Wole Soyinka, Dr. Pat Utomi and Promise Okekwe are doing laudable things for the progress and success of Nigerian writers in Nigeria. The Nigeria LNG Prize is not addressing the real problem with Nigerian Literature. They would do well to learn from the British Council and BBC.

I am still very disappointed that Pa Cyprian Ekwensi, the real first Nigerian writer of genius has not been given the dues he deserves.

Most of us have forgotten about John Munonye.

N.B:
You should read my true life short story Memories of a Refugee Child on Amazon Shorts and give me your critical analysis.

A reader in North America just pointed out a critical error in the story. An error that even the editorial staff of Amazon Shorts did not notice.

Orikinla:

SMC,

The fact that since Ben Okri won the Booker Prize over 10 years ago and the Nigerian society or government did not honour him shows the low level of our art appreciation. And the Nigerian government did not even celebrate the recent achievements of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Pa Chinua Achebe.
I am still very disappointed that Pa Cyprian Ekwensi, the real first Nigerian writer of genius has not been given the dues he deserves.

I disagree with you regarding giving writers (or anyone for that matter) honour or chieftaincy titles or the like. Nigerians need to get over the attitude that every achievement must result in honour and fanfare. You may disagree with me, but I am of the opinion that this is what happens in a society of either failures or of underachievers. If everyone was a high achiever, why would we need to honour one or two achievements?

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a "Well Done" when the occasion demands it. However, I believe Honour should come after numerous years or even a lifetime of being at the top of your game. Many Artists, Musicians, Composers, Scientists etc who today are heralded as geniuses were not recognised in their lifetime. Let us not get carried away with plaudits or the lack thereof, as these will come when you are good.

Orikinla:

N.B:
You should read my true life short story [b]Memories of a Refugee Child on Amazon Shorts and give me your critical analysis.

A reader in North America just pointed out a critical error in the story. An error that even the editorial staff of Amazon Shorts did not notice.[/b]

With regards to your short story, I have read it and I found a good few errors. Now whether or not they are critical to the crux of the story, I do not know but they are the kind of errors that should not be found generally in published works especially when one has an editor. If you do have one, Sack him.

FYI, Amazon Shorts will not spend any considerable amount of time editing your work (whether they do at all is debatable). It's not their Modus Operandi as the Amazon Shorts are meant for quick turn around.

SMC:

I disagree with you regarding giving writers (or anyone for that matter) honour or chieftaincy titles or the like. Nigerians need to get over the attitude that every achievement must result in honour and fanfare. You may disagree with me, but I am of the opinion that this is what happens in a society of either failures or of underachievers. If everyone was a high achiever, why would we need to honour one or two achievements.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a "Well Done" when the occasion demands it. However, I believe Honour should come after numerous years or even a lifetime of being at the top of your game. Many Artists, Musicians, Composers, Scientists etc who today are heralded as geniuses were not recognised in their lifetime. Let us not get carried away with plaudits or the lack thereof, as these will come when you are good.

SMC,

i dnt quite agree with you here.
first question is: why do we give this titles in the first place?
1) to give them a part on the back
2) to encourage others to work harder
3) to make role models out of them

now, if this is why we give title, i think every achiever shld be recognised.
it is done all ova the world
it just that the method differs

even the caine award we talk about is a case at hand.

journalist, musicians, scientists, etc are always appreciated world ova.

down here, we just add a little title to it.
now, wld it make more sense to honour pple that have made appreciable impact in their choosen carrer rather than the likes of Andy Uba
simply bc he is a friend of the president?

titles and awards are not primitive, they are social agents for positive change
and should be seen as such and thus treated as such!

Like I said, feel free to disagree with me.

But do note that I also said that Hounour/Titles may be given (after numerous years of proving yourself or post humously, not just because of one or two achievements).

Let's agree to disagree as I stand by what I have stated and I am sure you stand by your opinion too.

SMC:


Let's agree to disagree as I stand by what I have stated and I am sure you stand by your opinion too.

kool

SMC:

I disagree with you regarding giving writers (or anyone for that matter) honour or chieftaincy titles or the like. Nigerians need to get over the attitude that every achievement must result in honour and fanfare. You may disagree with me, but I am of the opinion that this is what happens in a society of either failures or of underachievers. If everyone was a high achiever, why would we need to honour one or two achievements?

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a "Well Done" when the occasion demands it. However, I believe Honour should come after numerous years or even a lifetime of being at the top of your game. Many Artists, Musicians, Composers, Scientists etc who today are heralded as geniuses were not recognised in their lifetime. Let us not get carried away with plaudits or the lack thereof, as these will come when you are good.

With regards to your short story, I have read it and I found a good few errors. Now whether or not they are critical to the crux of the story, I do not know but they are the kind of errors that should not be found generally in published works especially when one has an editor. If you do have one, Sack him.

FYI, Amazon Shorts will not spend any considerable amount of time editing your work (whether they do at all is debatable). It's not their Modus Operandi as the Amazon Shorts are meant for quick turn around.

SMC,
I take full responsibility for my mistakes.
The short story is a good introduction to the book.
Both the readers and critics have made the short story one of the hottest releases on Amazon Shorts and Amazon has corrected the "typos".

Editing my writings is not easy.

There were two voices in Memories of a Refugee Child . 
And I doubt if you understood the difference.

Formal editorial resolution would have spoilt the beauty of the narrative style. So, my editor knew what he was doing when he overlooked the peculiar language of the narrator.

Characterization is very important in narration.

We all cannot speak or converse in common Queen's English.

You can post the errors you noticed and address them within the context of Narrative Grammar based on the characteristics of the age, education and locale of the narrator, the refugee child.

Your corrections would be highly appreciated on this board.

Read Ken Saro-Wiwa' Sozaboy and  Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation

But only those in North America can download Memories of a Refugee Child..

Orikinla:

SMC,
I take full responsibility for my mistakes.
The short story is a good introduction to the book.
Both the readers and critics have made the short story one of the hottest releases on Amazon Shorts and Amazon has corrected the "typos".

Editing my writings is not easy.

There were two voices in Memories of a Refugee Child .
And I doubt if you understood the difference.

Formal editorial resolution would have spoilt the beauty of the narrative style. So, my editor knew what he was doing when he overlooked the peculiar language of the narrator.

Where exactly have these critics made this story one of the hottest stories? Cos I have looked and looked and I have not seen even one review/critique of the story (as regards the readers, I am not in a position to dispute that as there is no means of verifying how many times the story has been downloaded). Moreover, I am on Amazon right now and the "typos" you say have been corrected remain unedited (and no, this is not the copy I downloaded a couple of days ago).

Regarding the issues of two voices in your short story, you say you doubt if I understood the difference. I never knew there were two voices/angles so there was never a difference to understand. I have briefly glanced at the script again and though I have not read it over a second time, I still didn't catch the dual narrative style. I guess I'll take your word for it.

SMC,
Fine.
But, be more specific.

I will appreciate your critical analysis of the narrative grammar.

Post the erroneous sentences and your corrections.

6 web sites, 24 blogs and a writing career seems to me like a recipe for abandoned projects.
I think quality not quantity should be the watchword.

Iwerebor:

6 web sites, 24 blogs and a writing career seems to me like a recipe for abandoned projects.
I think quality not quantity should be the watchword.

Talk to Keith Rupert Murdoch AC, KCSG.

You are neither of these.
Mass production is rich in numbers but poor in value. I will go for quality anytime.

Blogger: Tour - What's a blog?A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. ,
www.blogger.com/tour_start.

Read:

royaldutchshellplc.com/2007/06/22/comment-on-nigerian-strikes-by-ekenyerengozi-michael-chima

www.huliq.com/tracker/126?page=1

blogs.bbc.co.uk/worldhaveyoursay/2006/08/how_do_you_deal_with_a_kidnapp.html

www.shvoong.com/authors/EKENYERENGOZI+MICHAEL+CHIMA/

www.michaelchima.gather.com/

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Urban Dictionary Words:

Urban Dictionary: Author Orikinla Osinachi's Definitions

Orikinla:

SMC,
Fine.
But, be more specific.

I will appreciate your critical analysis of the narrative grammar.

Post the erroneous sentences and your corrections.

I did not say I have done a critical analysis of your story. I just said I observed a number of errors. Now I will be happy to point them out to you via e-mail or IM in good faith, but I won't be drawn down the path of doing that on here and risk it degenerating into something else.

SMC:

I did not say I have done a critical analysis of your story. I just said I observed a number of errors. Now I will be happy to point them out to you via e-mail or IM in good faith, but I won't be drawn down the path of doing that on here and risk it degenerating into something else.

Contact:

publisher@nigeriantimesinternational.com

You get too much time on your hands to blog, @Orikinla. Either way, your short story is an amazon bestseller. Good job!

SMC:

I did not say I have done a critical analysis of your story. I just said I observed a number of errors. Now I will be happy to point them out to you via e-mail or IM in good faith, but I won't be drawn down the path of doing that on here and risk it degenerating into something else.

SMC,
I am very grateful for your corrections and beneficial advice.

As you noted, the Memories of a Refugee Child needs to be edited.

Ndipe,
Amazon is using the empathy for refugees to push the story and the poor knowledge of the English language by the narrator seems to be their hook.

You know Oyinbo people always enjoy the satirical originality of pidgin English.
They should have said:
Memories of a Refugee Child, written in Nigerian English.

Having my portrait on the cover is risky, because those Islamic terrorists roaming cyberspace can use it to hunt me, since I dismissed their prophet in Unveil Me My Love.

Orikinla:

SMC,
I am very grateful for your corrections and beneficial advice.

As you noted, the Memories of a Refugee Child needs to be edited.

Having my portrait on the cover is risky, because those Islamic terrorists roaming cyberspace can use it to hunt me, since I dismissed their prophet in Unveil Me My Love.

You are welcome. And is that Unveil me my Love, a book? a short story? or what? I have done a google search and zilch came up as an exact match.

Also, seems like despite winning the Caine prize about 6 years ago, Helon Habila has not cracked the British market like Adichie has. I walked into Waterstones yesterday to buy some books and they don't know him (his name does not come up on their system so I cannot even have the book ordered) . Though they did not have Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road', I was told I could order that one and have it delivered.

SMC,
Helon is popular in literary circles.
His novels are selling.
He is now teaching and writing in the US.

You can order for his novels on Amazon.

The Orange Prize is for female writers only. And the sponsors use it for social marketing and the hype favours the winners.

Adichie was known here before she won the Orange broadband prize (and I was aware it is for women only). What I was saying is that having won the Caine prize, one would think that Helon Habila should be in the biggest bookshops in Britain.

Ugandan wins the Caine Prize.

Ugandan wins Caine Prize, 10,000-pound award for African writing
The Associated PressPublished: July 9, 2007

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LONDON: A young Ugandan is this year's winner of a 10,000 pound prize for African writing, three years after she was a finalist for the award, the judges announced Monday.

Monica Arac de Nyeko's short story "Jambula Tree" was the eighth winner of the annual Caine Prize, created in honor of the late Sir Michael Caine, a British businessman with a deep interest in Africa who for almost 25 years chaired the management committee of what is today known as the Man Booker Prize.

Arac de Nyeko was shortlisted for the prize in 2004 for another story, "Strange Fruit."

Because it recognizes short stories, the 10,000-pound (US$20,000; about €14,000) prize sometimes called the "African Booker" often spotlights younger writers and the concerns of emerging literary trends on the continent.

Arac de Nyeko, born in 1979 in Uganda's north, scene of one of the world's longest civil wars, writes of conflict and poverty, but also of love and family.

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She writes with a sure touch for simile that brings to mind the best pop songs, packing layers of meaning and emotion into short, sharp phrases. Revenge in "Jambula Tree" is "sweet and salty like grasshoppers seasoned with onion and kamulari — red, red-hot pepper." In "Strange Fruit," a man press ganged by rebels in northern Uganda returns to his wife a convert to the cause, smelling of "gunpowder and decay."

Sudanese writer Jamal Mahjoub, chairman of the 2007 Caine judges, praised "Jambula Tree" as "a witty and touching portrait of a community which is affected forever by a love which blossoms between two adolescents."

Both the adolescents are women, described with such compassion that their community's unforgiving response when their love is discovered is more shocking than the theme. At a reading day before she was named the Caine Prize winner, Arac de Nyeko summed up "Jambula Tree" simply:

"It's a story really about innocence."

Arac de Nyeko studied in Uganda and the Netherlands, where she earned a degree in humanitarian assistance. She has taught literature and worked as a humanitarian officer in Italy and Sudan.

http://news.google.com/news?um=1&tab=wn&hl=en&q=caine%20prize

Fantastic!!!

Second Time Lucky. I am chuffed for her.