The Bookseller.com

18th May 2008

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Caine prize picks five

07.05.08

Authors from South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and Malawi have made it on to the shortlist for this year's "African Booker", the £10,000 Caine prize for the best short story in English by an African writer. The five stories to make the cut were drawn from more than 90 entries from 17 countries, reports the Guardian.

The selected stories are Ghanaian Mohammed Naseehu Ali's "Mallam Sile", from his collection The Prophet of Zongo; Malawian Stanley Onjezani Kenani's For "Honour"; South African authors Henrietta Rose-Innes for "Poison" and Gill Schierhout for "The Day of the Surgical Colloquium"; and Nigerian Uzor Maxim Uzoatu's Cemetery of Life.

This year's panel of judges is chaired by the artistic director of the Southbank Centre, Jude Kelly. Joining her are Jamaican poet and professor of English, Mark McMorris, Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, Eritrean-born Guardian journalist Hannah Pool, and the South African poet, novelist and lecturer Jonty Driver.

This year the shortlisted writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Overseas League on 4th July nd at the Southbank Centre literary festival on 6th July.

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Oxford's Bodleian library on 7th July.

Guardian

Media Prize Caine Prize for African Writing