9th July, 2013
A Nigerian, Tope Folarin, has won this year”s Caine Prize for African Writing. He won it with his short story, ”Miracle”, published in Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012).
The prize is worth. 10,000 pounds, a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice and participation in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September.
The Chair of Judges, Gus Casely-Hayford, announced Folarin as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held Monday evening at the Bodleian Library in Oxford..
With this award, Folarin becomes the fifth Nigerian to win the keenly contested prize since it debuted in 2000.
He succeeds Rotimi Babatunde, another Nigerian who won the prize last year.
Announcing the award, Casely-Hayford praised the story, saying: “Tope Folarin’s ‘Miracle’ is another superb Caine Prize winner – a delightful and beautifully paced narrative, that is exquisitely observed and utterly compelling”
He also said ”Miracle” is a story set in Texas in an evangelical Nigerian church where the congregation has gathered to witness the healing powers of a blind pastor-prophet. Religion and the gullibility of those caught in the deceit that sometimes comes with faith rise to the surface as a young boy volunteers to be healed and begins to believe in miracles.
Folarin emerged from a shortlist that included three Nigerians, Elnathan John. Chinelo Okparanta and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The other shortlisted writer was Pede Hollist, a Sierra Leonian.
Folarin was educated at Morehouse College, and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Master’s degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. He lives and works in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Institute for Policy Studies and Callaloo, and he serves on the board of the Hurston/Wright DFoundation.
Previous winners are Sudan’s Leila Aboulela (2000), Nigerian Helon Habila (2001), Kenyan Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Kenyan Yvonne Owuor (2003), Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava (2004), Nigerian Segun Afolabi (2005), South African Mary Watson (2006), Ugandan Monica Arac de Nyeko (2007), South African Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008), Nigerian EC Osondu (2009), Sierra Leonean Olufemi Terry (2010), Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo (2011) and Rotimi Babatunde(2012).
—Nehru Odeh