Namwali Serpell has been announced as the winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, “The Sack”.
Serpell receives £10 000, while each short listee received £500.
Zambian-born author Namwali Serpell is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.In an unprecedented move, Serpell announced in her acceptance speech that she will be sharing the prize with her fellow shorlistees.
The winner was announced at an awards ceremony and dinner at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford. Zoë Wicomb chaired the panel of judges this year, which included Neel Mukherjee, Brian Chikwava, Zeinab Badawi and Cóilín Parsons.
Last year, the Caine Prize went to Okwiri Oduor, for her story “My Father’s Head”.
2015 marks the 16th time the prize has been given, and as a sign of the established calibre to be found in African writing, and maturity of the Caine Prize, the shortlist included one past winner and two previously-shortlisted writers.
Serpell’s win is a first for Zambia.
In 2011, Namwali was a finalist in the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, which is given annually to six women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers.
The awards of $25,000 each was presented to recipients on Sept. 22 in New York City.
Serpell’s work has appeared in the journal Callaloo, as well as the Bidoun and The Believer magazines.
Her first published story, “Muzungu,” was selected by Alice Sebold for inclusion in “The Best American Short Stories 2009? and was shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing.
Celebrated novelist Rona Jaffe (1931-2005) established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards.She says that there’s a relationship between the modern novel’s capacity to unsettle and perplex us and its ethical value, in other words how authors uses uncertainty to engage and explain.
Congrats Namwali for the prize. With all these brains, I can’t understand why Zambia is the way it is with because kamponya’s have been ruling those with brains with pangas.
i will tell you why we are still the way we are. Its for the same reasons we praise such achievements that we fail.Our education system is wrong.The greeks themselves told you that your education as africans is better than that of the greeks which they themselves equated to being as low as pig education.
Education is knowledge of self,education builds you and your community, society, country.We as africans are taught to get the education, but this education is not tailored to our people, our inner african frequency.
What good is english literature if its the same language that is killing our culture, our languages,the same language used by our oppressors.
I have never seen Jewish people celebrating the holcaust or getting a hitler scholarship like we do with the rhodes scholarship
if she brings and spends that money in zambia, it could help cushion the kwacha exchange rate which is under pressure due to lack of forex.
Both her parents are professors: Dr Robert Serpell (dad) & Dr Namposya Serpell (mom). It shows that a good home foundation is always good for children to thrive. Well done, Namwali!
That is very positive news for Zambia though we acknowledge such people when they win such prestigious awards but we do not want to give them the opportunity to have Zambian citizenship (dual citizenship). We only mention Zambian born??
Is she not Zambian? On BBC interview yesterday (7th July) she called Zambia home. She said she makes sure she visits home (Zambia) often to be with her parents. She is a Zambian.
Its always a breather to hear the name Zambia mentioned in good light.
Congrats Namwali.
@KK airport, all our successive govts have adopted an education system that deny our people to become what you call big brains. The reason is so that they can continue to lord over us. Only properly educated people can be free thinkers. The few that have proper education either fall in the trap of the ruling class & foster continuing of the status quo or are ostracized. The moment the majority are properly educated to think freely is the time the maggot called Zambia will be a butterfly (or is it the eagle) it deserves to be.
Listen to the thinking our current leaders (from ECL to the bottom) then you will notice how poorly educated we are.
Namwali, waticotsako manyazi (you have removed our shame)! Well done! The fact that you unashamedly call Zambia your home, is a great source of pride for many of us who have followed the Serpell family saga from the early 1970s when your father was our lecturer at the University of Zambia (Psychology). As a writer of less luminous variety, I was energized and elated when I learnt of your winning the Cannes Prize for literature. Its NOT easy. Zambia should acknowledge and appreciate that one of its own has brought a smile on the nation, especially after strings of losses and a lucky win in the national spot, soccer. More oil to your elbow, kid!
Hector Banda. Immediate past president, Zambian PEN Centre.