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Ugandan wins African Booker

10.07.07 |

Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko has won the "African Booker". The writer picked up the £10,000 Caine Prize for African writing three years after she was a finalist for the prize. She is the eighth winner of the award.

Her story "Jambula Tree" appeared in anthology published last year, entitled African Love Stories. The Sudanese novelist Jamal Mahjoub, who chaired the panel of judges, described it as "a witty and touching portrait of a community which is affected forever by a love which blossoms between adolescents".

The Independent notes that the award follows a run of success for black African writers. Last month, the £30,000 Orange Broadband prize was awarded to 29-year-old Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, an epic set in the Biafran war. In the same month, one of the first great African novels Things Fall Apart by the Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958, belatedly won the Man Booker International Prize.

• Booker Prize
• Caine Prize
• Monica Arac de Nyeko
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