Deadline: 31 March 2024

Registration for the Caine Prize for African Writing 2024 are now open. The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is a registered charity whose aim is to bring African writing to a wider audience through our annual literary prize.

As well as administering the Prize, they work to connect readers with African writers through a series of public events, as well as helping emerging writers in Africa enter the world of mainstream publishing through the annual Caine Prize Writers' Workshop, which takes place in a different African country each year.

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The stories written in the Caine Prize workshops are published each year alongside the selected Caine Prize stories in the annual Caine Prize anthology by Cassava Republic Press in the UK and by publishers in African countries, including Jacana Media (South Africa), Cassava Republic (Nigeria), FEMRITE (Uganda), Gadsen Publishers (Zambia), 'amaBooks (Zimbabwe), Langaa (Cameroon) and Mkuku na Nyota (Tanzania).

Prize

• The winner receives a cash prize of £10,000. Four selected writers receive a cash prize of £500 each.
• The selected writers will be invited to London to take part in a series of public events. Writers selected from the long list of judges will be invited to an annual workshop in an African country.

Eligibility

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• The story must have been published in the five years prior to the submission deadline. For eligibility in 2024, the judges will only consider works published between 1 April 2019 and 25 March 2024.
• 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 arts websites.
• Writers must be over 18 at the time of submission.
• Self-published and unpublished stories are not eligible.
• Editors are encouraged to submit several stories, as long as they don't submit more than one story by the same author.
• Stories can only be entered for consideration in the Caine Prize for African Writing once. Unfortunately, this means that you can't resubmit a story for consideration, even if it hasn't been shortlisted.
• Genres not eligible for submission include: novels, children's stories, factual writing, academic essays, theatre plays, poetry, autobiography/biography and any work that does not constitute a fiction story.
• Entries must specify which African country the author comes from and the word count of the story.
• Editors are required to send an 'editor's letter' with each submission. See below for more information:
  • What should the editor's letter include? Editors are obliged to provide:
    • Name of writer(s).
    • Title of the story or stories being submitted.
    • Word count of each story submitted.
    • The qualified nationality of the writer(s).
    •  The date of publication of the story or stories. 
    • Confirmation of the consent of the writer(s) whose stories are being submitted to the Prize.

Application

• Each story must be sent by the publisher by e-mail ( submissions@caineprize.com ) as a PDF attachment or via a link to the story (if it has been published online).
• Make sure that 'Caine Prize for African writing application for 2024 ' appears in the subject line of your e-mail.

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For more information, visit Caine Prize for African Writing .