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Brian Chikwava, from Zimbabwe, has won the fifth Caine Prize for African Writing for ‘Seventh Street Alchemy’ from Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare 2003. The result was announced on Monday, 19 July, 2004 in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Brian is the first winner of the prize from Zimbabwe.
"A very strong narrative in which Brian Chikwava of Zimbabwe claims the English language as his own, and English with African characteristics," said Alvaro Ribeiro, chairman of the judges committee. "A triumph for the long tradition of Zimbabwe writing in the face of Zimbabwe's uncertain future."
The Caine Prize, awarded annually for African creative writing, is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker and chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years. The prize is awarded for a short story by an African writer, published in English.
Also on the shortlist were:
Doreen Baingana (Uganda) for ‘Hunger’ from the Sun Magazine, March 2003;
Parselelo 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.
Last year's Prize was awarded to Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor from Kenya, for ‘Weight of Whispers’ from Kwani?, Nairobi 2003. Yvonne is executive director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival and has been named Woman of the Year by Eve Magazine in Nairobi. Kenyan writer and journalist Binyavanga Wainaina won the Prize in 2002 for ‘Discovering Home’, from G21Net 2001. Wainaina has since gone on to establish Kwani?, Kenya’s only literary magazine, from which both Yvonne’s story and one of this year’s short-listed stories were chosen.
This year’s judges included Alvaro Ribeiro, associate professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC; Nigerian 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 Literature, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
The four African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer and J M Coetzee, are patrons of The Caine Prize. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is president of the council for the prize.
