I believe the Prize will achieve excellence and transform perceptions.
Whatever helps the literature of Africa enriches the literature of the world.’
Ben Okri, Chairman of the judges, The Caine Prize 2000

 

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Caine Prize 2008 winner announced

South Africa’s Henrietta Rose-Innes has won the 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for Poison from ‘Africa Pens’, published by Spearhead, an imprint of New Africa Books, Cape Town, 2007. The Chair of Judges, Southbank Centre Artistic Director Jude Kelly, announced Henrietta as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner on Monday 7 July in the Bodleian Library in Oxford .

 

Jude Kelly said that the story showed “a sharp talent, a rare maturity and a poetic intelligence that is both subtle and deeply effective. It is writing of the highest order.”

 

Henrietta Rose-Innes was also shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2007 for her short story Bad Places. Last year she won the 2007 HSBC/South African PEN Literary Award for Poison. Henrietta was born in Cape Town and obtained her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Cape Town , after also studying archaeology and biological anthropology. Her first Novel Shark’s Egg, was published in 2000 and her second, The Rocket Alphabet, appeared in 2004. Henrietta’s short stories and essays have appeared in various publications and she has also compiled an anthology of South African writing, Nice Times! A book of South African pleasures and delights (2006). In 2007 and 2008 she was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart .

 

Also on this year’s shortlist were:

 

Mohammed Naseehu Ali (Ghana) ‘Mallam Sile’, from ‘The Prophet of Zongo’, published by Amistad, an imprint of Harper Collins, NY, 2005

Stan ley Onjezani Kenani (Malawi) ‘For Honour’ from ‘African Pens’, published by Spearhead, an imprint of New Africa Books, Cape Town, 2007

Gill Schierhout ( South Africa ) ‘The Day of the Surgical Colloquium’ from ‘African Pens’, published by Spearhead, an imprint of New Africa Books, Cape Town , 2007

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu ( Nigeria ) ‘ Cemetery of Life ’ from ‘Wasafiri’ No52 Autumn 2007

 

The Chair of Judges, Jude Kelly, became Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre in 2005. An experienced director of over 100 productions, she was awarded an OBE for services to the theatre in 1997 and is Chair of Culture, Ceremonies and Education at the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. Joining Jude on the panel this year were Jamaican poet and professor of English, Mark McMorris; Hisham Matar, author of the internationally successful first novel In the Country of Men; Hannah Pool, an Eritrean author and Guardian journalist; and second time judge, the South African poet, novelist and lecturer Jonty Driver

Once again the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize, known as the ‘African Booker’, will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC , as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

For further information on the Caine Prize please contact:

Abigail Cochrane
Raitt Orr & Associates Ltd    

Tel:      020 7630 9778
Fax:     020 7630 5067
E-mail: abigail@raittorr.co.uk

Nick Elam 
The Caine Prize for African Writing   

Tel:       +44 (0) 20 7378 6234
E-mail: info@caineprize.com
Web:    www.caineprize.com

 

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