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The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual short story award. The Prize is awarded for a short story by an African writer published in English, whether they reside in Africa or elsewhere.
Table of ContentThe Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. The £10,000 prize was founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, and was named in memory of Sir Michael Harris Caine,former Chairman of Booker Group plc. Because of the Caine Prize's connection to the Booker Prize, the award is sometimes called the "African Booker".The prize is currently known as the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing... read more
The winner and shortlisted writers will be invited to participate in events in Africa, London and elsewhere should resources and circumstances permit. In these cases, there will be travel award granted to each of the shortlisted candidates
By submitting an entry to the AKO Caine Prize, the publisher and author gives a non-exclusive, non-commercial permission in perpetuity for the Prize to reproduce the story in the AKO Caine Prize anthology in print, digital and audio format should the story be shortlisted.
By consenting to their stories being submitted for the Prize, the shortlisted writers agree to take part in AKO Caine Prize events, including but not limited to in-person and online panel discussions, interviews, readings, podcast recordings and the final award ceremony.
The story must have been published in the five years preceding the submissions deadline. For 2023 eligibility, the judges will only consider work published between 1st February 2018 and 25th January 2023.
Entries must be more than 3,000 words or less than 10,000 words.
Entries must be submitted by a publisher. This includes publishers of physical and digital books, literary journals, magazines, and literary arts oriented websites.
Writers must be over 18 years of age at the time of submission
Self-published and unpublished works are not eligible.
Publishers are encouraged to submit multiple short stories as long as they do not submit more than one story by the same author.
Stories may only be entered for consideration for the AKO Caine Prize once. Unfortunately this means that you may not re-submit a story for consideration, even if it was not selected for the shortlist.
Genres not eligible for entry include: stories for children, factual writing, academnic essays, plays, poetry and autobiography/biography.
Submissions must specify which African country the author comes from and the short story word count.
Publishers are required to upload a ‘publisher’s letter’ with each submission. See below for more information:
What should the publisher’s letter include?
Publishers are required to provide:
Name of the writer(s).
Title of the story or stories being submitted.
Word count of each submitted story.
The qualifying nationality of the writer(s)
The date of publication of the story or stories.
Confirmation of consent from the writer(s) whose stories are being submitted for the Prize.
For more details,visit AKO Caine Prize website