The 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African writing was given to renowned Kenyan author Idza Luhumyo for her short tale “Five Years Next Sunday.”
In a record-breaking year for entries, Luhumyo wins KSh 1.8 million (£10,000) after defeating 267 eligible contenders.
The narrative “Five Years Next Sunday,” which earned the 2021 Short Story Day Africa Prize, centers on a young woman who possesses the extraordinary ability to call the rain in her hair.
Feared by her family and neighbours, she transforms her situation after an accidental encounter with a stranger, but there are cunning plans for her most valuable and exposed asset.
After Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Yvonne Owuor (2003), Okwiri Oduor (2014), and Makena Onjerika, Luhumyo is the fifth Kenyan author to get the honour (2018)
At an award ceremony held at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Okey Ndibe, the Chairperson of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize Judging Panel, declared her the winner.
“An incandescent story – its exquisite language wedded to the deeply moving drama of a protagonist whose mystical office invites animus at every turn,” Ndibe described Luhumyo’s story.
This year, French-Guinean author and professor Elisa Diallo, South African literary curator and co-founder of The Cheeky Natives Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane, Nigerian visual artist Ade ‘Àsìkò’ Okelarin, and Kenyan co-founder of the Book Bunk Angela Wachuka judged the prize alongside Ndibe.
Later this year, Cassava Republic Press will include Luhumyo in the collection for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize.
When discussing Luhumyo’s tale, Ndibe remarked, “What we liked about the story was the mystical office of the protagonist, who is both ostracized and yet holds the fate of her community in her hair. She is stripped of agency by her immediate family, as well as the Europeans who give the impression of placing her on a pedestal, yet within that seeming absence of agency, and oppressive world, is her stubborn reclamation of herself. The dramatic tension in the story is so powerful and palpable that it’s like something you could cut with a knife,”.
The 2022 Judging Panel gave the shortlist high marks and praised the other entries for their excellent writing and breadth of genre.
