How Nigerian author won £10,000 Caine Prize

 

Tope Folarin

There was jubilation in Nigeria’s literary world when a US-based Nigerian writer, Tope Folarin, was awarded the 2013 prestigious Caine Prize for African writing.

He received the £10,000 ($15,000) prize for his short story Miracle, which is set in an evangelical Nigerian church in Texas, United States of America. The book’s plot raced through a congregation that gathers at a church to witness the healing powers of a blind pastor-prophet.

According to BBC, he was among five writers short-listed for the prize, regarded as Africa’s leading literary award. Three other Nigerians were short-listed namely Elnathan John for Bayan Layi, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim for The Whispering Trees and Chinelo Okparanta for America.

Judges for the award described it as a “delightful and beautifully paced narrative”.

Sierra Leone’s Pede Hollist was the only non-Nigerian short-listed for his short story Foreign Aid.

Rotimi Babatunde won last year’s Caine Prize for African writing for his story Bombay’s Republic which tells a story about Nigerian soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign during World War II.

Folarin lives and works in Washington, DC. He was educated at Morehouse College, and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Master’s degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. He is a recipient of writing fellowships from the Institute for Policy Studies and Callaloo. He serves on the board of the Hurston/Wright Foundation.