Olufemi Terry Wins 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing

Sierra Leone's Olufemi Terry has won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa's leading literary award, for 'Stickfighting Days' from Chimurenga vol 12/13, Cape Town. The Chair of Judges, The Economist's Literary Editor Fiammetta Rocco, announced Olufemi as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held this evening (Monday 5 July) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Fiammetta Rocco said "ambitious, brave and hugely imaginative, Olufemi Terry's 'Stickfighting Days' presents a heroic culture that is Homeric in its scale and conception. The execution of this story is so tight and the presentation so cinematic, it confirms Olufemi Terry as a talent with an enormous future."

Olufemi Terry was born in Sierra Leone of African and Antillean parentage. He grew up in Nigeria, the U.K, and Cote d'Ivoire before attending university in New York. Subsequently, Olufemi lived in Kenya and worked as a journalist and analyst in Somalia and Uganda. He lives in Cape Town where he is writing his first novel. His writing has appeared in Chimurenga, New Contrast and The Caine Prize for African Writing's Eighth Annual Collection.

Read the story here.

Get a copy of Chimurenga vol 12/13 here. 

Also shortlisted were:

Ken Barris (South Africa) 'The Life of Worm' from New Writing from Africa 2009, published by Johnson & King James Books, Cape Town

Lily Mabura (Kenya) 'How Shall We Kill the Bishop?' from Wasafiri No53, Spring 2008

Namwali Serpell (Zambia) 'Muzungu' from The Best American Short Stories 2009, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston MA

Alex Smith (South Africa) 'Soulmates' from New Writing from Africa 2009 [as above].

Once again the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity to 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.

Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian writer EC Osondu for his short story 'Waiting' from Guernicamag.com, October 2008. Other previous winners include Uganda's Monica Arac de Nyeko, for 'Jambula Tree' from African Love Stories, Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2006, and Brian Chikwava, from Zimbabwe, whose first novel Harare North was published in 2009 by Jonathan Cape. Sudan's Leila Aboulela, winner of the first Caine Prize in 2000, will publish her new novel Lyrics Alley in January 2011 with Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and this August will see the publication by Hamish Hamilton of Oil on Water, the third novel by Nigerian writer Helon Habila, who won the second Caine Prize in 2001.

Congratulations to Femi!