Lesley Nneka Arimah, Wins 2019 Caine Prize, Tasks Writers to Focus on 'African Gaze'

Nigerian writer, Lesley Nneka Arimah, has won the 20th edition of the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story titled: “Skinned.”

The long awaited 2019 announcement was made on Tuesday by the

Dr. Peter Kimanj-led panel of judges, which picked Arimah’s short story for the star prize ahead of other shortlisted writers, including Meron Hadero’s ‘The Wall’ from Ethiopia; Cherrie Kandie’s ‘Sew My Mouth’ from Kenya; Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti’s ‘It Takes A Village Some Say’ from Cameroon; and Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor’s ‘All Our Lives’ from Nigeria.

“Your stories have added to the profile of African literature, adding the many voices that we need to illuminate who we are,” Arimah told fellow writers in her acceptance speech, reaffirming the need for African writers to focus more on the African gaze.

According to her, “When I think of what literature can do, and I think of the ways that literature has changed minds and opened imaginations, I want to say that we African writers must centre the African gaze. We must centre the Nigerian gaze, the Cameroonian gaze, the Ethiopean gaze, the Kenyan gaze. We need to be writing to and for each other, and we also need to play.

“And what I mean by play is that when one knows a thing inside and out, say cooking, the chefs who do fusion cooking do so because they know both cuisines that they are using intimately.

“I think of experimentation as the sign of expertise. And I think it’s important we continue as we have started, as we have been, as we are doing always, that we continue to play within the bounds of our literatures. And I emphasise ‘each other’ because, yes, we must centre the African gaze. Thank you so much.”

The Caine Prize for African Writing was launched in 2000. It is awarded consistently annually to an African writer of a short story published in English. The winner receives £10,000 prize money, and each shortlisted writer also receives £5,000.

Arimah has been described as an award-winning writer, who won the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa, and has twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2016 and 2017.