Writing
Still: New Stories From Zimbabwe
Edited by Irene Staunton
2003: 204 x 138; 272pp
ISBN 0 77922 018 9
2004 Caine Prize Winner Announced
The Caine Prize for African Writing
July 19,2004
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 by the Chair of
the judges, Alvaro Ribeiro, at a dinner held this evening (Monday,
19 July) 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. “A triumph for the long tradition of Zimbabwe
writing in the face of Zimbabwe’s uncertain future!”
Although from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Brian Chikwava
spent his formative years in Harare, where at the popular artistes’
venue, The Book Café, he regularly took part in poet evenings,
public discussions and music performances. It is here that he started
experimenting with different genres of art by collaborating with other
young writers and musicians in an attempt to create new ways of presenting
the African experience.
Brian has recently relocated to London and is working on his first projects
outside Zimbabwe – Bubble Wrapping Artificial Shit, a novella that
he has just started writing, and Jacaranda Skits, a music album of his
unique and ‘whole-wheat’ sound that blends his writing abilities
with southern African township jazz, ska and blues.
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 currently 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.
Alvaro Ribeiro, this year’s Chair of the judges, was also a judge
for the first Caine Prize in 2000. Alvaro 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 on this
year’s panel included 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
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 (whether in Africa or elsewhere), with an indicative length
of 3,000 to 15,000 words. An “African
writer” will normally be taken to mean someone who was born in
Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or whose parents
are African, and whose work has reflected that cultural background.
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
and Jonathan Taylor is the Chairman.
For further information please contact:
Pernille Goodall
Raitt Orr & Associates Ltd
Tel: 020 7222 5479
Fax: 020 7222 5480
E-mail: pernille@raittorr.co.uk
Nick Elam
The Caine Prize for African Writing
Tel: 020 7376 0440
Fax: 020 7938 3728
E-mail: info@caineprize.com
www.caineprize.com
© The author/publisher