BULAWAYO - Zimbabwean author Tendai Huchu was beaten to the £10 000 Caine Prize for African Writing by Kenyan writer Okwiri Oduor.
Huchu, who was hoping to follow in the footsteps of fellow Zimbabweans NoViolet Bulawayo who won the award in 2011 and Brian Chikwava who came out tops in 2004, walked away with £500 prize money along with the other Caine Prize finalists.
Oduor‘s story My Father’s Head was judged the best from a shortlist that also included Huchu’s The Intervention, Diane Awerbuck (South Africa) for her story Phosphorescence, Efemia Chela from both Ghana and Zambia for Chicken, and Kenya’s Billy Kahora for The Gorilla’s Apprentice.
The award, which is open to African short story writers for work published in English, was announced at a glittering event at the Bodleian Library in Oxford in the United Kingdom on July 14.
Every year, a Caine Prize anthology is published, which includes the shortlisted stories as well as those written by participants at the annual Caine Prize workshop which was held in Harare this year.
This year’s collection, The Gonjon Pin, will be released in Zimbabwe by Bulawayo-based AmaBooks Publishers within the next two weeks.
The Caine Prize anthology, to be launched at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Harare at the end of this month, will also be released by select publishers in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana.
The book features seven Zimbabwean writers who are Huchu, Lawrence Hoba, Violet Masilo, Isabella Matambanadzo, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, Philani Nyoni and Bryony Rheam.