The Caine Prize 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing

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 Content
• About The Caine Prize
• AKO Caine Prize
• Aim and Benefits of AKO Caine Prize
• Requirements for AKO Caine Prize Qualification
• Documents Required for Application
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About The Caine Prize

The 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... continue reading

AKO Caine Prize

Aim and Benefits of AKO Caine Prize

• The winner is awarded a cash prize of £10,000, and the other four shortlisted writers will receive £500 each.
• Opportunity to participate in the Prize's various programmes
• Opportunity to participate in interviews, panel discussions and readings with a global audience

Requirements for AKO Caine Prize Qualification

• The story must have been published in the five years preceding the submissions deadline. For 2022 eligibility, the judges will only consider work published after 31st January 2017

• Stories less than 3,000 words or exceeding 10,000 words are not eligible for the Prize. 

• Short stories must be submitted by a publisher - including publishers of physical and digital literary journals or magazines. Self-published and unpublished works are not eligible.

• Publishers must obtain consent from the writer(s) before submitting their stories for the Prize.

• Stories submitted for the Prize must have been published in English. Translated stories are eligible, provided that an English translation has been published.

• Stories that have been previously submitted for the Caine Prize are not eligible.

• Genres not eligible for entry include stories for children, factual writing, plays and autobiography/biography.

• Submissions must specify which African country the author comes from and the word count.

• Publishers are encouraged to submit multiple short stories as long as they do not submit more than one story by the same author. 

Documents Required for Application

Publishers are required to provide:  

• Name of the writer(s).

• Title of the story or stories being submitted.

• Word count of each 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.

Application Deadline

How to Apply

• Each story must be submitted by the publisher via the entry form on our website.

• The submission form will become available here when the submissions window opens in December 2021

If you have any queries regarding the above, please contact us via email at [email protected]. 

For more details,visit  AKO Caine Prize website