Deadline: 26-Jan-23
Applications are now open for AKO Caine Prize for African Writing that aims to bring African writing to a wider audience through the annual literary award.
In addition to administering the Prize, they assist emerging writers in Africa to enter the world of mainstream publishing.
Their panel of judges will read, deliberate, and shortlist five stories from the eligible entries. The shortlisted writers will be invited to London to participate in a series of events including:
- Private luncheon with agents, editors, publishers and publicists
- Public readings and panel discussions
- Interviews with press and media institutions, and
- Invitation to the 2023 award ceremony where the winner will be announced.
Benefits
- The winner will be awarded a cash prize of £10,000, and four shortlisted writers will receive £500 each.
Eligibility Criteria
- 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- Self-published and unpublished works are not eligible.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.
Who can submit stories for the Prize?
- Entries must be submitted by the publisher or a third party institution that is independent of the author.
- Publishers of physical and digital literary journals, magazines or literature-oriented websites may submit entries for the Prize.
- Self-published and unpublished works are not eligible for the Prize.
- Short stories submitted by the author(s) will not be eligible for the Prize.
Shortlisting and Expectations
- 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 Prize will provide a separate letter detailing terms of agreement to the shortlisted writers.
For more information, visit AKO.