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Olufemi Terry's  Stickfighting Days won the 11th Caine Prize for African Writing Award in 2010. It was later included in the anthology A Life in Full  anthology published in 2010. This story first appeared in Chimurenga vol. 12/13. The focus of the Caine Prize is ' on the short story, as reflecting the contemporary development of African story-telling tradition.' Here, one wonders if the 'African story-telling tradition' part deals with what publishers refer to as 'The African Story'. If so, the Caine Prize has succeeded. If the 'development' is also necessary, then it has failed totally; for now, the prize is almost seen as the ultimate search for the story that that can make readers puke and wonder if the characters are savages or humans. Consequently, writers summon all their creative power to write the most scatological stories that would define what an African story is. Whereas some writers search for the most rotten neighbourhoods in any...

So I must say that this one went by without my notice and had it not been  The Bookaholic Blog I would not have heard it and talked about it. Thanks Bookaholic. I first blogged about the Prize here... Sierra Leone's Olufemi Terry has won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing for ' Stickfighting Days ' from Chimurenga vol 12/13. This Prize has been described as Africa's leading literary award. The Chair of Judges, The Economist's Literary Editor Fiammetta Rocco, announced Olufemi as the winner of the 10,000 pound prize at a dinner held on Monday July 5 at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.  Fimmetta Rocco said "ambitious, brave and hugely imaginative, Olufemi Terry's 'Stickfighting Days' presents a heroid culture that is Homeric in its scale and conception. The execution of this story is so tight and the presentation so cinematic, it confirms Olufemi Terry as a talent with an enormous future" Olufemi was born in Sierra Leon of Af...