AKO CAINE PRIZE 2022: A REVIEW OF THE SHORTLISTED STORIES
From Nigeria to Kenya, to Ethiopia, to Ghana, these African voices are doing something magical with short stories...
The five shortlisted stories for 2022 AKO CAINE Prize all carry something special. I like them. I think they are riveting, just as much as I find them welcoming and exciting to read.
I do not know how the judges come about these particular pieces as the shortlist, so I'll focus on just talking about them and which ones I think will win the prize.
I read Collector of Memories, and Five Years Next Sunday sometime last year. They were the only ones I've read before coming across this shortlist.
Nevertheless, it was necessary to read all the stories again with fresh eyes, to let them sink in and enjoy African literature. To read them one after the other nonstop so I won't base what I write about them on my biases.
Joshua Chizoma's 'Collector of Memories' is a wonderful read as always. I like the simplicity of this prose and the pace. The characters in this story are relatable to any Nigerian irrespective of class. The dialogues are what you'll expect from a fine writer like Chizoma.
I won't call this particular piece a novel story, because the plot is far from being original. I mean, if you spent the first seventeen years of your life watching mostly Nollywood, you won't be surprised anymore reading that people steal babies from mad/disadvantaged women living in shacks.
Here in my side of Lagos, we call children like that àwọn ọmọ orí ákìtàn”. The revelation, and the cliffhanger that ended the piece is as expected. I think what makes this story different is the impeccable storytelling, and that's a huge plus. Oh, I need to say this; I wasn't expecting the 'pegging' part.
Hannah Giorgis's 'A Double-Edged Inheritance' is a perfect example of what a disjointed short story actually looked like. The plot is strong but I really can't say the same for the characters. I liked this story because it gave me an insight into what Ethiopia may look like.
However, I do not like that the writer was skittering around too much, which dampened the storytelling. You could always expect the next paragraph to be another jump into another character and scene. The pacing, lack of intentionality in actions, and some scenes, especially towards the end just read like exaggerated fiction.
It was as if Giorgis was struggling to fit a thousand puzzle pieces together within a small time frame. In short story writing, that's a shit ton of stress, and for such a story to still make it to a big shortlist like Caine's, then it's no small work. I'm quite intrigued about how and why it is the only 2020 story on the list. I do not think the story is unworthy; I just think it's obviously the least rated piece on this year's shortlist.
Nana-Ama Danquah's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' is all shades of excellent prose. The storytelling is powerful right from the first sentence, and it held me down until the very end. There's something appealing about reading a story that mirrors a medical diagnosis, and people's lives after it.
Okay, maybe I'm a little bias here because I'm a student of medicine. I mean, who doesn't love a story that moves both its characters and the readers? The subtlety of the themes such as the sex lives of married couples, cancer, shitty family member, and the idea of infidelity.
I like that in this particular piece, Danquah pushed the agenda of every human being capable of untold evil with the right amount of motivation. There is no paucity of strong imagery, and the piece carries this elegance that is a direct attestation to Danquah's mastery of storytelling.
Idza Luhumyo's 'Five Years Next Sunday' is an epitome of rich language, a flawlessly executed style, prose whey sabi pass prose, and strong movement. Before, I read the other works on the shortlist, I was unwaveringly sure that this is the winning piece. That's how good the story is. That's how sure I am till now.
No, it's not just about the metaphysical or the relatability of the characters. It is not just the story of a girl whose hair traps rain, her selfish family and their obsession with money. It is about the fact that Luhumyo perfectly weave betrayal, the complexity of families, and human attraction into such finely written prose.
The language is so moving you'd think the story was trying to invent itself. Ever paragraph bloomed in beautiful ways. I like the dialogues, and the storytelling. The way I necessarily do not have to understand the words not written in English. I don't want to call another language vernacular because no language really is. I like that Africans are now writing in English, code switching effortlessly, and being shameless about it. That's unbridled energy on paper!
Billie McTernan's 'The Labadi Sunshine Bar' is another exciting work that explores the fine, delicate lives of sex workers. I love the language and the dialogues. It's not exactly the best I've seen but I love the code switching too. I like the subtle theme, and how I can relate to them.
I still think we don't tell the stories of sex workers as accurately as I'd wanted. There is this way Africa writers try to err on the side of caution; we try not to look like we are selling only the ugly sides of Africa. The poverty-porn, grief-porn, bad governance-porn, and a thousand other kind of porns.
Of course these porns exists and that's why we write about them. Our stories are a reflection of our societies. Of what we see around us, of things we've heard, and read. I do not think we should stop writing about a particular topic simply because it's not as beautiful as we'd wanted. This particularly story dragged unnecessarily at some point, and the ending did not exactly gel. But, McTernan proved that she's good at this craft with her storytelling.
In my very much unsolicited, highly objective, and maybe arguable opinion. I think the winning entry is a fierce battle between Five Years Next Sunday, When a Man Loves a Woman and Collector of Memories. I'm not excluding the winning chances of the remaining two, I just think they are not as strong as these three.
These five stories made it to the shortlist out of 267 entries, which is a feat in its own way. I love that these voices are writing new things, and making giant strides in African writing. Cheers to the shortlistee. Una well done abeg.
You can download the stories here:
http://www.caineprize.com/the-stories-2022