The shortlisted stories for the 2021 AKO Caine Prize are:
- ‘Lucky’ by Doreen Baingana (Uganda) published in Ibua Journal, Online in Kampala, Uganda, 2021. Please find her story here.
- ‘The Street Sweep’ by Meron Hadero (Ethiopia) published in ZYZZYVA, Ethiopia, 2018. Please find her story here.
- ‘The Giver of Nicknames’ by Rémy Ngamije (Namibia) published in Lolwe, Kenya, 2020. Please find his story here.
- ‘This Little Light of Mine’ by Troy Onyango (Kenya) published in Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia, 2020. Please find his story here.
- ‘A Separation’ by Iryn Tushabe (Ugandan) published in EXILE Quarterly, Canada 2018. Please find her story here.
The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced via a specially curated virtual award in July. Each shortlisted writer will also receive £500. 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 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. Works translated into English from other languages are not excluded, provided they have been published in translation, and should such a work win, a proportion of the prize would be awarded to the translator.
