Awarded to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the Caine Prize …
The Caine Prize for African Writing lately introduced Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo because the winner of the 2025 Better of Caine Award for her brief story, Hitting Budapest.
The announcement was made by Ellah Wakatama OBE, Chair of the Caine Prize, on the inaugural Phrases Throughout Waters Afro Lit Pageant on Saturday, twenty seventh September 2025.
Awarded to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the Caine Prize, the Better of Caine Award honoured essentially the most excellent profitable story from the Prize’s 25-year historical past. Hitting Budapest, a narrative about six poor youngsters who sneak right into a rich neighbourhood referred to as Budapest to steal guavas, initially gained the Caine Prize in 2011. Bulawayo makes use of the story to critique social inequalities and spotlight the innocence and vulnerability of youngsters.
Talking about Bulawayo’s brief story, Nobel Laureate Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah, (the Chair of this 12 months’s judging panel), remarked that whereas it was a tremendously spectacular assortment of tales to learn by, the choice to award the Better of Caine Prize to No Violet Bulawayo was unanimous and swift.
“The judges have been impressed with the management of voice the story demonstrated and the very good evocation of a childhood imaginative and prescient,” Prof. Gurnah stated.
Different members of this 12 months’s judging panel have been Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, the award-winning Ugandan novelist and brief story author who gained the 2014 Commonwealth Quick Story Prize and teaches Inventive Writing at Manchester Metropolitan College, and Tony Tagoe, the acclaimed Ghanaian movie producer, music govt, and inventive strategist whose profession spans music, movie, model partnerships, and cultural advocacy.
Reacting to the win, Bulawayo stated: “I want to thank the Caine Prize and the judging panel for this unbelievable honour. Profitable the Caine Prize as an unpublished author again in 2011 was actually the type of defining spotlight to jumpstart a profession. It introduced my work to a world viewers, affirmed my literary path, and strengthened my confidence and dedication to writing in order that ending a primary novel worthy of the popularity bestowed on me by Africa’s most prestigious literary award – my first ever recognition – was non-negotiable. Now, receiving the Better of Caine Award these a few years later seems like a second to mirror on the journey.
“I warmly congratulate the twenty-four exceptional profitable authors and finalists whose works have helped outline the prize as much as this second. That many have gone on to construct distinguished careers, producing various and influential works that proceed to problem, broaden, enrich, and reimagine what African literature will be, speaks to the indelible impression of the prize. It’s twenty-five years of consistency, excellence, and imaginative and prescient – our current is vibrant, and the long run guarantees much more. And it’s to the long run writers nonetheless to come back, these whose voices we’re but to listen to, that I dedicate this Better of Caine Award—I’m actually excited to learn you all, and witnessing the way you proceed to form the panorama of African literature.”
NoViolet Bulawayo is the writer of the acclaimed novels, Glory (2022) and We Want New Names (2013). Her books have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and longlisted for the Ladies’s Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Phrases Literary Prize, and the Rathbones Folio Prize. Bulawayo has gained the Pen/Hemingway Award and the LA Occasions E-book Prize Artwork Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, amongst others. She at the moment teaches at Cornell College, the place she obtained her MFA.
The Caine Prize for African Writing is awarded for a brief story by an African author revealed in English (indicative size: 3,000 to 10,000 phrases). It’s named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc and of the Booker Prize administration committee for practically 25 years. The African winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka and J M Coetzee, are Patrons of The Caine Prize. Ellah Wakatama OBE is the Chair.
An African author is outlined as somebody who was born in Africa, is a nationwide of an African nation, or has a dad or mum who’s African by beginning or nationality. Works translated into English from different languages will not be excluded, supplied they’ve been revealed in translation. Ought to such a piece win, a proportion of the prize is awarded to the translator.
You possibly can learn Bulawayo’s prize-winning story right here.