Caine Prize withdraws Okafor’s story from 2019 shortlist

Nigerian writer Tochukwu Okafor’s ‘All Our Lives,’ shortlisted for this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing has been withdrawn.

This was announced on the Caine Prize for African Writing’s website on September 3 following an investigation into an allegation levelled against Okafor’s story which led to a comparison of ‘All Our Lives’ and Laleh Khadiyi’s ‘Wanderlust’, published in 2014, by the 2019 Judges, in which they discovered that “there had been a failure to attribute an original source.”

It read in part that “It is accepted that in this particular case, the author’s failure to attribute a core source was born of inexperience and lack of familiarity with literary protocols,” and that the Prize will review its guidelines for 2020 submissions in order to guard against such incidences.

The Caine Prize is awarded annually for African creative writing. It is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years. It is awarded for a short story by an African writer published in English.

Nigeria’s Lesley Nneka Arimah won the 2019 prize for her story ‘Skinned.’