This year’s Caine Prize received a the highest number of submissions ever – but according to judge Neel Mukherjee the 2015 entries boasts another, more “dubious”, record: the highest number of stories centred on sex.
In an article for the Caine Prize blog, the Indian author and Man Booker Prize shortlistee quotes one of his fellow judges, halfway through the reading process, as exclaiming: “God, there’s a hell of a lot of sex going on in Africa.”
Read Mukherjee’s hilarious – and insihgtful – piece:
Masturbation features a lot, especially female masturbation. Male genitals, erm, dismembered (and disembodied), appear on a wall (yes, you read that correctly). There’s even sex – well, almost – with a tokoloshe. There’s an explicit little number, by no definition a story, in which a male narrator justifies his infidelity by his wife’s refusal to shave her legs or blow him after their marriage. And there’s your common-or-garden variety sex as well; often called vanilla, I’m reliably informed. Oh, did I forget female orgasms and ubiquitous ejaculations?
[...]
But it set me thinking: could it be that, after decades of being expected to write about poverty, famine, AIDS, corruption, dictators, writers from most of the countries on the continent are writing about whatever the hell they feel like writing about? But the problematics of this ‘liberation’ don’t need spelling out.
On this year’s shortlist, which was announced in early May, are South Africans Masande Ntshanga – who’s having a pretty big year – and FT Kola, along with 2005 winner Segun Afolabi (Nigeria), 2013 shortlistee Elnathan John (Nigeria) and 2010 shortlistee Namwali Serpell (Zambia).
The 2015 Caine Prize judging panel is chaired by Zoë Wicomb. She is joined by Mukherjee, Zeinab Badawi, Cóilín Parsons and Brian Chikwava, winner of the 2004 Caine Prize.
The winner of the 2015 Caine Prize will be announced in Oxford, England, on Monday, 6 July.
Book details
- Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee
EAN: 9780099554486
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee
EAN: 9781849013895
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- October by Zoe Wicomb
Book homepage
EAN: 9781415207062
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Harare North by Brian Chikwava
Book homepage
EAN: 9780224086110
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories edited by Caine Prize
EAN: 9781431420261
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga
Book homepage
EAN: 9781415207192
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- A Life Elsewhere by Segun Afolabi
EAN: 9780099485186
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Twenty in 20: The Best Short Stories of South Africa’s 20 Years of Democracy by , , , , , edited by Mandla Langa
EAN: 9781928216421
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara by Various Authors
Book homepage
EAN: 9781408854679
Find this book with BOOK Finder!