We Need New Caines

Uh? What the hell does he mean by that? New Caines. Is he referring to the Caine Prize for African writing? Yes, but I’m referring to the new plural form - Caines. Reader take note. This is not another anti-Caine Prize battle, so all the literary Conans please keep back your swords. Neither is it another Caine scourge with a literary cane. This is not another essay which yells at the Caine Prize that it continues to recognize African writers who are writing poverty porn, and that it should now recognize African writers who are writing rich porn. Oh! I like the sound of that. Rich porn. Definition: Rich porn is the opposite of poverty porn. This is just a suggestion to the Caine Prize about “newness” on the writers selected on its recent shortlists, as this year’s (2016) shortlist unveiling draws very close. The title of my suggestion essay is, “We Need New Caines”, a pun on Zimbabwean novelist, NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel, “We Need New Names.”

When I was a kid in primary/secondary school, I was a keen reader of short fiction from the Matracks children series and the novels in the African Writers Series in our school library. We even studied some of them; Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Mongo Beti, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ferdinand Oyono, Camara Laye, Francis Selormey etc. But with the AWS going defunct, my follow up of more recent African writers dropped dead in its tracks, especially as I couldn’t find their novels in Cameroon, a literary landscape which I call a novel desert. Then came the internet and the Caine Prize for African Writing in the mid 2000s for me and I got to discover and read new, exciting writers like Leila Abouleila, Binyavanga Wainaina, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Monica Arac de Nyeko, EC Osundu, Henrietta Rose Innes, NoViolet Bulawayo and Ibrahim Adam Abubakar. Most of these writers kept me up to date with new literary trends with their writing styles and themes in their brilliant stories. And quite a couple of them were relatively unknown before their Caine Prize achievements. I started asking family and friends abroad to buy some of their longer works and send to me.

And so another new “African short story writers series” was born; the Caine Prize, to somewhat replace my dear defunct AWS and I could read Caine for free. I know all the winning stories/winning authors and a horde of the Caine Prize shortlisted authors and their short stories offhand. The highly inventive and cinematic 3D style with which Olufemi Terry wrote “Stickfighting days” inspired me to write graphic, fast paced stories like "Wahala Lizard." The high voltage humour which Lauri Kubuitsile effortlessly injected into “In the spirit of McPhineas Lata” cracked me up like never before and she taught me about comic irony and reverse engineering. The unbelievable and shocking experiences of teenage boys in a refugee camp in EC Osundu's "Waiting" took my mind to a place I could never go. The poignant experiences of Salim and spiritual depth in Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s “The Whispering Trees” almost opened up my tear ducts, then he strangely surprised me and deeply consoled me at the end.

After a couple of the Caine Prize years, some writers who had previously been on the shortlists began reappearing again. That wasn’t a major issue for me as it was generally one author. But last year, 2015, the reappearing authors constituted the majority (three out of five) and it irritated me because I’d lost my quest for newness at the Caine. The sudden apparition of Segun Afolabi had been the most irritating and it had me screaming, “Oh no! What’s a former Caine Prize winner doing here!” Afolabi actually won the Caine Prize eleven long, long years ago in 2005. It had been so long that I’d almost forgotten about him. Now picture how that is startling from this angle. Zimbabwean writer, Brian Chikwava won the Caine Prize in 2004 with his story, "Seventh street alchemy," a year before Afolabi won it in 2005 with "Monday Morning." Brian Chikwava was one of the judges of the 2015 Caine Prize. Then Segun Afolabi popped up on the 2015 Caine Prize shortlist again sha! Imagine if Afolabi had won, Brian would have been one of those on the judging panel handing Afolabi the Caine Prize trophy, when both of them won the thing just a year apart. Nah, in 2015 Afolabi should have been a big boy at the Caine, like a judge or Caine Prize workshop facilitator, not on the shortlist again. With all the money, book deal for "Goodbye Lucille" and publicity he had way back.

Namwali Serpell won that Caine Prize and Zambia had its first ever winner which was cool, but she’d been shortlisted five years prior, with a story titled, “Muzungu.” So what about her 2015 story, “The Sack”? That story eluded me. I grabbed little or nothing. In fact, I read it twice on my laptop and on both occasions, I dozed off, as if the story had sprayed sleeping gas on my face from the screen. Disappointed, I said to myself, “How do you intend to become an accomplished writer someday when you cannot understand a Caine Prize winning story?” But when I read online that, even the Caine Prize judges had to reread it over and over to finally get it, I was consoled. “Ah ha, it’s not only me oh. It even dribbled the Caine Prize judges with all their staggering genius, so relax man.” When a writing mentor, Pede Hollist, asked my opinion about the story on Facebook, I hacked back at the keyboard in jest, “I sack “The Sack” because it is incomprehensible.” Wait a minute, I think that’s a compliment not a diss. The cherubic professor lady wrote that kind of dense fiction in a complex style that many readers will struggle with, I no go lie. So I think that portrays that she is in a league of her own and even surpasses Caine Prize submission.

Elnathan John was the third previously shortlisted writer with a new piece that was my favourite last year, “Flying.” But I think “Bayan Layi” in 2013 was a better story. With his debut novel out, a beautiful satirical blog which has got a large following and his accomplished literary presence, he also doesn’t need the Caine Prize again. Billy Kahora doesn’t need to be shortlisted for the Caine Prize again. He’s been a judge for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature (a novel prize for God’s sake) and also judged the Kwani? Manuscript Project, then was later Caine Prize shortlisted in 2014 for "Gorilla's Apprentice," after rocking the boat in 2012 with his very impressive “Urban Zoning" and getting honourable mentioned in 2007 with “Threadmill Love,” so 2.5 times for Billy.

On that note, I suggest most of our former shortlisted writers should be doing bigger things at the Caine Prize like judging the entries - just like Brian Chikwava did and facilitating the annual Caine Prize workshops, like the first Caine Prize winner in 2000, Sudanese novelist, Leila Abouleila did for us. I think they should help other literary initiatives like Writivism, Kwani?, SSDA and Bakwa grow bigger, rather than submitting. Can I also say that the Caine Prize should not judge submissions from writers who have already been shortlisted twice anymore? And that they should create a new space for emerging writers? What about a Junior division, The Caine Prize for previously not shortlisted or winning African writing? The Caine Prize shortlist is the cannon for most readers who follow some of the best new fiction by African writers, which is a bad and good thing in equal measure. If you want to argue that it is actually "The Caine Prize for African writing," so anyone can be doubly shortlisted and not, "The Caine Prize for emergent African writing," that should limit previously shortlisted writers, also remember that their slogan is, "Something new from Africa." Not enough as an argument? I'm sure you're probably thinking too that those who've being shortlisted are actually returning with something new. Fair point.

Now Imagine this line up of former shortlisted writers as your next Caine Prize for African writiing shortlist: Leila Abouleila, Helon Habila, Chimamanda Adichie, Binyavanga Wainaina and Mukoma Wa Ngugi, all in there again as your fantastic five. That sir Michael Caine statue in London will just develop a scowl on its face. And if Wole Soyinka gets shortlisted in 2017, that stature will just explode out of anger. “What the hell is a Nobel Prize winner and Caine Prize patron doing on my shortlist?” There are a lot of young, emerging African writers that I would love to see on the 2016 and future Caine Prize shortlists and even the Caine prize workshops, rather than a recycling of previously shortlisted writers, just like my resident president, Paul Biya recycles a bunch of the same tired, old men along key ministerial positions. 

  

Wasn’t it a delight discovering a 21-year-old Efemia Chela on the Caine Prize shortlist in 2014? Yes, we need more Effies. Hey, who mentioned my name? No, I’m just a troublesome satirist trying to get shortlisted for Elnathan John’s award of “trying hard and not winning no-nothing…sorry, anything.” Better still, I’m trying to get arrested by the Caine Prize for African writing, so I’ll also become very famous and I hope the writers who have been shortlisted twice will bail me from jail so I'll write a book about my experience. I had to go to other online platforms and a Caine Prize workshop to discover some new names on the African literary scene, since my quest for newness at the Caine Prize has sadly not been satisfied in 2015. The authors on the Caine Prize shortlists are rapidly becoming old names and old Caines, so I will conclude this essay by saying that, "We Need New Caines.”