Nigerian emerges 2nd runner up of Short Story Day Africa Prize

Static, a short story by a Nigerian, Alithnayn Abdulkareem, has been named as the second runner up of the 2020/2021 Short Story Day Africa Prize.

The Washington DC-based development practitioner gets $100 and her story alongside that of other winners and the rest of the longlist would be published in Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa, due out in September 2021.

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‘Five Years Next Sunday’ by a Kenyan, Idza Luhumyo, won while the first runner up was ‘Shelter’ by Mbozi Haimbe, a Zambian. They would receive prize money of $800 and $200 respectively.

Alithnayn Abdulkareem is an alumnus of Chimamanda Adichie’s Farafina writers’ workshop and writes mostly opinion articles and personal essays, with the occasional short story to keep things interesting.

The prize organiser said a particular source of pleasure is noting that two of the three winners have had their stories appear in the Short Story Day Africa previous anthologies.

“Congratulations to our three winners! We’re immensely proud of you. The competition was extremely tough, as anyone who reads Disruption will see, and the judges were exceptionally impressed with the calibre and imaginative reach of your stories – especially as the topic was set before the world as we knew it changed so dramatically and disastrously,” the statement from the organisers announcing the winners said.

Idza Luhumyo is a Kenyan writer with training in screenwriting and a background in law.

Mbozi Haimbe was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia, where she lived until her mid-twenties. Mbozi has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge.