Sierra Leone’s Olufemi Terry Wins the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing

By Edward Nawotka

Olufemi Terry, a Sierra Leone writer resident in South Africa, has won the £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story Stickfighting Days, which you can read in full here. In addition to £10,000 in prize money, Terry will take part in a month long writer-in-residence program at Washington, DC’s Georgetown University.

Shortlisted writers included South Africans Alex Smith and Ken Barris, Kenya’s Lily Mabura, and Zambia’s Namwali Serpell.

You can read all the shortlisted stories here. Or you can purchase a print edition of the book A Life in Full, which includes all the shortlisted stories as well as others written during the Caine Prize writing workshop held earlier this year.

In addition, I recommend you revisit Nigerian Tolu Ogunlesi’s provocative essay for Publishing Perspectives “Who Controls African Literature” for a look at how one African writer views the role of the literary gatekeepers from the West who bestow honorifics on African writing.