South African writers dominate shortlist for Short Story Day Africa Prize

Short Story Day Africa is pleased to announce the shortlist for the R10 000 Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction.

This year over 450 entries were received for the Prize from over two dozen countries, from writers both living on the African continent and in the African diaspora. Once whittled down according to submissions guidelines, each story was stripped of all identifying elements and sent to two readers. A selection of 60 stories was then whittled down by the SSDA team to a longlist of 21. All longlisters stories will be collected in Water: New Short Fiction From Africa, Short Story Day Africa’s third anthology.

The esteemed judging panel for this year’s Prize consisted of South African Mary Watson, Kenyan Billy Kahora and Nigerian Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The three judges blind-read and judged all the longlisted stories and, between the three of them, they selected a shortlist of six.

The shortlist is as follows:

• “A Fierce Symmetry” by Alex Latimer (South Africa)
• “Water No Get Enemy” by Fred Khumalo (South Africa)
• “Finding Mermaids” by Chido Muchemwa (Zimbabwe)
• “The Worme Bridge” by Cat Hellisen (South Africa)
• “Traces” by Megan Ross (South Africa)
• “Ink” by Mark Winkler (South Africa)

The winners will be announced at the Aké Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta, Nigeria in November. The grand prize winner is set to win R10 000. Prizes are sponsored by Worldreader, Books Live, ANT ProHelvetia and All About Writing.

Water: New Short Fiction From Africa, edited by Nick Mulgrew and Karina Szczurek, will be released worldwide on 1 January 2016 in partnership with Hands On Books, Cassava Republic and New Internationalist.

Both of SSDA’s previous anthologies have received critical acclaim, with two stories from Feast, Famine & Potluck shortlisted for The Caine Prize for African Writing – with one, “My Father's Head” by Okwiri Oduor, going on to win the prize – while Terra Incognita received wide critical praise, including an excellent review from the L.A. Review of Books.

The full longlist for the Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction 2015 – and the list of stories to be published in Water: New Short Fiction From Africa – is as follows:

• Alex Latimer, “A Fierce Symmetry” (South Africa)
• Donald Molosi, “Beetroot Salad” (Botswana)
• Wairimu Muriithi, “Love Like Blue” (Kenya)
• Christine Coates, “How We Look Now” (South Africa)
• Mark Mngomezulu, “Urgency” (Swaziland)
• Cat Hellisen, “The Worme Bridge” (South Africa)
• Louis Ogbere, “Were” (Nigeria)
• Efemia Chela, “The Lake Retba Murder” (Ghana/Zambia)
• Louis Greenberg, “Oasis” (South Africa)
• Chido Muchemwa, “Finding Mermaids” (Zimbabwe)
• Wesley Macheso, “This Land Is Mine” (Malawi) 
• Siyanda Mohutsiwa, “And Then We Disappeared Into Some Guy’s Car” (Botswana)
• Alexis Teyie, “Mama Boi” (Kenya)
• Mary Okon Ononokpono, “Inyang” (Nigeria/UK)
• Dayo Ntwari, “Mother’s Love” (Rwanda)
• Thabo Jijana, “Native Mayonnaise” (South Africa)
• Pede Hollist, “The Tale of the Three Water Carriers” (Sierra Leone)
• Fred Khumalo, “Water Get No Enemy” (South Africa)
• Megan Ross, “Traces” (South Africa)
• Florence Onyango, “Nyar Nam” (Kenya)
• Mark Winkler, “Ink” (South Africa)

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