Caine prize shortlist for 2004

This year's shortlist of five writers for the Caine Prize for African Writing comprises two Ugandans and one each from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

• Doreen Baingana (Uganda) for ‘Hunger’, from the Sun Magazine, March 2003
• Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe) for ‘Seventh Street Alchemy’ from Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare 2003
• Parselelelo Kantai (Kenya) for ‘The Story of Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band’ from Kwani?, Nairobi 2003
• Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda) for ‘Strange Fruit’ from Cook Communication, online magazine AuthorMe
• Chika Unigwe (Nigeria) for ‘The Secret’ from online literature magazine Open Wide

In addition, the judges highly commended two other entries:

• Jackee Budeste Batanda (Uganda) for ‘Remember Atita’ from Cook Communication, online magazine AuthorMe
• Charles Mungoshi (Zimbabwe) for ‘The Sins of the Fathers’ from Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare 2003
  

It is a reflection of the difficulty of finding outlets for short stories that the majority of these writers have had their work published in online literary journals – Kwani? (www.kwani.org), AuthorMe and Open Wide. The 2003 winner of the prize was published on Kwani?, which was established by the 2002 winner, Binyavanga Wainaina.

"It was a varied and exciting year, and I think we have a shortlist that reflects these qualities," said Alvaro Ribeiro, the Chair of this year’s panel of judges.

Alvaro Ribeiro, who was also a judge for the first Caine Prize in 2000, is associate professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC, where he teaches courses on Shakespeare, the Eighteenth Century and the Man Booker Prize. The other judges are Kenyan playwright Biyi Bandele, Bernice Rubens, whose novels include The Elected Member for which she won the 1970 Booker Prize, Our Father, and most recently Nine Lives; Anna Umbima, broadcaster and journalist; and Nana Wilson-Tagoe, senior lecturer in African Literatures, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

The winner of the US$ 15,000 prize will be announced on 19 July, during a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.