The Caine Prize 2009: The Caine Prize for African Writing 10th Annual Collection Book

Mamle Kabu - The End of Skill A simple narrative frames a complex web of beliefs, desires, needs and passions in tension; the tale mirroring its subject, kente cloth. This is sort of the quintessential Cain Prize story



Parselelo Kantai - You Wreck Her I can't help but get antsy when a story from the point of view of a female sex worker written by a man starts with the phrase 'You don't know how far you have fallen down in this word until…" I don't know what to make of this. it has some ferocity on the commodification of the exotified African subject for the Euro-American consumer, but what is happening here instead?



Alistair Morgan - Icebergs Cold, ugly, glacial in style, but compelling and lucid.



EC Osondo - WaitingI would like to talk about the theme of excrement which is explicit in this and several other stories here. The refugee camp residents used to have a kind of symbiotic relationship with half wild dogs who ate up the excrement. Then hungry times came, and the refugees ate some of the dogs, and the rest fled, and now there is shit everywhere, and indirectly we have eaten our own shit (is this what happens when you turn on your friends?) and I realise how often writing situated as post-colonial confronts us with excrement, which most people in the global north get to avoid contact with to a remarkable extent. I experience this as violence against myself as a reader - it hurts me and leaves a mark on me, it disturbs me in the way I ought to be disturbed about my privilege. For me the horror of excrement is very powerful.



Mukoma wa Ngugi - How Kamau wa Mwangi Escaped into Exile This is the first piece of writing I've read by Mukoma wa Ngugi. I am really intrigued by his direct style, which seems at once simple and experimental. It plays with viewpoints unexpectedly. Funnily enough, it reminds me of something I heard the Scots Makar Liz Lochhead say about hating the weird voice people suddenly put on to recite poetry, in that it doesn't put on a weird voice, it isn't writerly but strangely oral, the reader feels she is being personally spoken to. This feels experimental and tentative. I enjoy the protective tree and the encounter with usefully ignorant whites. I'm looking forward to more from this writer.



Franka-Maria Andoh - Mansa This is neat and sharp, like a fable, but with much more complicated undertones. As in 'The End of Skill', the questions is poses about loss and time are impossible to resolve.



Ayesha Haruna Attah - Ekow This is my favourite story in the book. Structurally it's completely unconventional, yet very simple. Taking a taxi through the city to come home is like… Cain Prize house style, but Attah breaks the form completely here in a way that makes my heart sing. It's just a little hospitality, but it changes the whole world... I love the beautiful utterance of Laa ilaa illa llah which is here like a pivot between the negative uncertainty and the weight of the past at the start of the story and the lightness of opening possibility at the end



Alba K Sumprim - NoWindscreen Wipers Apart from being a bit masculinist, this piece is fun. I really like stories from the point of view of workers about their work - there is a terrible deficiency of literature like this!



I haven't written about all the stories but it's only because I'm lazy. I thought this was a good year for the prize.

Interesting collection that allows one to read how another part of the world lives. Good way to introduce yourself to writing in English from Africa as there are so few other sources available to American readers through mainstream publishers.