ARG London Presents Sixteenth Caine Prize shortlist - 04.07.15

SPECIAL EVENT: This month we will be discussing the Fifteenth Caine Prize shortlist.

All the stories are available to download from the Cain Prize website: Read the shortlist now.

This is a closed event for reading group members to meet the short-listed writers and discuss their stories.

About the Caine Prize:
The Caine Prize, awarded annually for African creative writing, is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc 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 (indicative length 3,000 to 10,000 words). An “African writer” is normally taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality.

The five writer shortlist for the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced by Chair of judges, award-winning South African writer Zoë Wicomb. In a sign of the established calibre to be found in African writing and as the Caine Prize matures in its sixteenth year, the shortlist includes one past winner and two previously shortlisted writers.

The 2015 shortlist comprises:

Segun Afolabi (Nigeria) for “The Folded Leaf” in Wasafiri (Wasafiri, London, 2014)
Caine Prize winner 2005 for “Monday Morning”
Elnathan John (Nigeria) for “Flying” in Per Contra (Per Contra, International, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2013 for “Bayan Layi”
F. T. Kola (South Africa) for “A Party for the Colonel” in One Story (One Story, inc. Brooklyn, New York City, 2014)
Masande Ntshanga (South Africa) for “Space” in Twenty in 20 (Times Media, South Africa, 2014)
Namwali Serpell (Zambia) for “The Sack” in Africa39 (Bloomsbury, London, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2010 for “Muzungu”

Each of these stories will be published in New Internationalist’s Caine Prize 2015 Anthology in July and through co-publishers across Africa.

London edition of the African Reading Group (ARG!) is there to help readers keep up with the explosion of literature coming out of Africa and its diaspora. We are a ‘new voice’ reading group, focusing on short story collections, novels and some critical or non-fiction. From time to time we may go back to a classic of African literature — but the emphasis is on the new.

The books will be available at meetings to buy from Book and Kitchen. During our holiday times or if you are unable to purchase the books in advance – you can also purchase through Paypal. For ARG members we offer a reduced shipping and handling fee of £0.75 only. Find out more.

4 July 2015 at 10:00pm - 4 July 2015 at 8:00pm

British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB

Price: Member Special Event

Contact: dafne@bookandkitchen.com