Caine Prize quote

JUDGES: 2011



Hisham Matar (Chair)

Hisham Matar is a Libyan novelist. His first novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US. It won six international literary awards and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Matar's articles and essays have appeared in Alsharq Alawsat, The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times, El Pais and the New Statesman. His second novel Anatomy of a Disappearance will be published in March by Viking.



Ellah Allfrey

Ellah Allfrey is deputy editor of Granta magazine. She has published many distinguished African writers including Ngugi wa Thiongo, Chinua Achebe, Brian Chikwava, Peter Akinti, Dinaw Mengestu and Yaba Badoe.



Aminatta Forna

Aminatta Forna's most recent novel The Memory of Love was selected as one of the Best Books of the 2010 by the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times and The Times. Her previous novel Ancestor Stones won the Hurston Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction, the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, the Liberaturpreis in Germany and was nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. The Devil that Danced on the Water, a memoir of her dissident father was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and serialised on BBC Radio. Aminatta is a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and sits on the advisory committee of the Caine Prize for African Writing. She has previously acted as judge for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Macmillan Prize.



David Gewanter

David Gewanter is a professor of English literature at Georgetown University. He is author of three books of poetry, In the Belly, The Sleep of Reason and most recently War Bird. He is co-editor of Robert Lowell: Collected Poems, and has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the US Library of Congress, and The English Speaking Union (US).



Vicky Unwin

Vicky Unwin was Publisher of Heinemann's African Writers Series for eight years in the late 1980s and early 90s, and published many of the greatest names in African literature. She has worked in Africa for most of her life, latterly as Media Director for the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, responsible for the Kenya-based Nation Media Group. She is Chairman of Art First, a contemporary gallery in London, but lives in Geneva, where she writes on film and travel, and is researching a book about her family.

JUDGES: 2010

Fiammetta Rocco (Chair)
Fiammetta Rocco is a third-generation Kenyan. She was educated at Oxford University where she read Arabic. Her investigative journalism has won awards on both sides if the Atlantic. She is now the literary editor of The Economist and the author of "The Miraculous Fever Tree: The Cure that Changed the World".


Ellah Allfrey
Ellah Allfrey is deputy editor of Granta magazine. She was previously Senior Editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House, having started her publishing career at Penguin Books. She has published many distinguished African writers including Ngugi wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe (in Penguin Modern Classics) as well as Brian Chikwava, Peter Akinti, Dinaw Mengestu and Yaba Badoe.


Jon Cook
Jon Cook is a Professor of Literature and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of East Anglia. He has written a number of books of criticism and biography, including, most recently, Hazlitt in Love published in 2007. He has worked with a number of former Caine Prize winners during their time as fellows or students at UEA and has been closely involved in the development of creative writing at the University over a number of years. He is a member of the Arts Council.


Samantha Pinto
Samantha Pinto is an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgetown in Washington DC. She has written on women's issues, Caribbean sexuality and African American literature, and teaches courses on African writing, sexuality and Global cultural studies among other subjects.

Judges: 2009

Nana Yaa Mensah (Chair),
New Statesman chief sub-editor


Professor Jon Cook,
Professor of literature at the University of East Anglia


Jennifer Natalya Fink,
novelist and Georgetown University professor


Hannah Pool,
Guardian journalist and author

Mohammed Umar,
Nigerian novelist, journalist and bookseller

Judges: 2008

Jude Kelly (Chair),
Artistic Director at the South Bank Centre


Jonty Driver,
South African poet and novelist


Hisham Matar,
Libyan author


Mark McMorris,
Jamaican poet and professor of English at Georgetown University


Hannah Pool,
Guardian journalist and author

Judges: 2007

Jamal Mahjoub (Chair),
award winning British-Sudanese author


Jonty Driver,
South African poet and novelist


Dr Wangui wa Goro,
academic, critic and writer

Delia Jarrett-Macauley,
award winning novelist


Robert Molteno,
former Zed Books managing editor

Judges: 2006

Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe (Chair),
senior lecturer in African Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)


Aminatta Forna
broadcaster, journalist and author


Maya Jaggi,
award winning cultural journalist


Dr Mpalive Msiska,
lecturer in National and International literature, University of London

Judges: 2005

Baroness Lola Young (Chair),
writer, cultural critic, public speaker and broadcaster


Victoria Arana,
professor of English at Howard University in the US


Aminatta Forna,
broadcaster, journalist and author

Romesh Gunesekera,
Sri Lankan author


Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe,
senior lecturer in African literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Judges: 2004

Alvaro Ribeiro (Chair),
associate professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC


Biyi Bandele,
Nigerian playwright


Bernice Rubens,
Booker Prize-winning novelist


Anna Umbima,
broadcaster and journalist


Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe,
senior lecturer in African Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Judges: 2003

Abdulrazak Gurnah (Chair),
novelist and professor of Literature at the University of Kent


Shirley Chew,
professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Leeds


John Sutherland,
Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of Modern English Literature at University College London


Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe,
senior lecturer in African Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Judges: 2002

Dr Ahdaf Soueif (Chair),
Egyptian author


Margaret Busby,
Ghanaian author, publisher, journalist and broadcaster


Jason Cowley,
New Statesman editor


Abdulrazak Gurnah,
novelist and professor of Literature at the University of Kent

Judges: 2001

Dan Jacobson (Chair),
South African novelist and critic


JM Coetzee,
South African Booker Prize-winning author


Jason Cowley,
New Statesman editor


Buchi Emecheta,
Nigerian author


Véronique Tadjo,
writer and academic from Côte d'Ivoire

Judges: 2000

Ben Okri (Chair),
Nigerian Poet and Booker Prize-winning author


Alvaro Ribeiro,
associate professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC


William Boyd,
award winning author


Véronique Tadjo,
writer and academic from Côte d'Ivoire