Shortlisted writers for 2011 Caine Prize

NoViolet Bulawayo

NoViolet Bulawayo was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She recently completed her MFA at Cornell University in the US, where she is now a Truman Capote Fellow and Lecturer of English. Another of her stories, 'Snapshots', was shortlisted for the 2009 SA PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. NoViolet has recently completed a novel manuscript tentatively titled 'We Need New Names', and has begun work on a memoir project. 'Hitting Budapest' was first published in The Boston Review, vol 35, no 6, Nov/Dec 2010.

Tim Keegan

Tim Keegan, a Capetonian by birth, started his working life as an academic historian, with spells in Britain and the US before returning to South Africa. He left academic life in his forties in order to write full-time. In addition to several books of history, he has published three novels, one of which, Tromp's Last Stand, is a detective story set in Cape Town. His last novel My Life with the Duvals was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa section. 'What Molly Knew' first appeared in Bad Company, published by Pan Macmillan SA, 2008

Lauri Kubuitsile

Lauri Kubuitsile is a full-time writer living in Botswana. She is the author of 14 works of fiction (for adults and children) and numerous textbooks. Her short stories have twice been highly commended in the Commonwealth Short Story Contest (CBA) and in both 2009 and 2010 she won the Golden Baobab Literary Prize. This year will see the publication of her young adult book, Signed, Hopelessly in Love (Tafelberg) and a third romance novella, Mr Not Quite Good Enough (Sapphire). 'In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata' first appeared in The Bed Book of Short Stories, published by Modjaji Books, SA, 2010.

Beatrice Lamwaka

Beatrice Lamwaka is the General Secretary of the Uganda Women Writers Association (FEMRITE). She was a finalist for the 2009 SA PEN/Studzinski Literary Award and was a fellow of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation/African Institute of South Africa Young Scholars programme that year. Her stories have been published in national and international journals and anthologies. She is currently working on her first novel and a compilation of her short stories and is studying for an MA in Human Rights at Makerere University. 'Butterfly Dreams' first appeared in Butterfly Dreams and Other New Short Stories from Uganda, published by Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, Nottingham, 2010.

David Medalie

David Medalie is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria. He published his first collection of short stories in 1990. He won a Sanlam Literary Award for one of his short stories in 1996; and 'The Mistress's Dog' won the Thomas Pringle Award in 2008. His debut novel, The Shadow Follows, published in 2006, was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Literary Award and the M-Net Literary Award. 'The Mistress's Dog' appeared in his second collection of stories, The Mistress's Dog: Short Stories 1996-2010, published by Picador Africa, 2010.

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