The Daily Assortment of Astonishing Things and Oth Format: Paperback

THE LEADING AFRICAN LITERARY AWARD, KNOWN AS THE AFRICAN BOOKER, NAMED AFTER THE BOOKER PRIZE FOUNDER, MICHAEL CAINE. Now entering its seventeenth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa’s leading literary prize, and is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This collection brings together eighteen short stories—the five 2016 shortlisted stories, along with stories written at the 2016 Caine Prize Writers’ Workshop that took place in Zambia. The collection showcases young writers who went on to publish successful novels, for instance: Leila Aboulela, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, Brian Chikwava and Helon Habila. The shortlisted writers include Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya), Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria), Tope Folarin (Nigeria), Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe), and Lidudumalingani (South Africa). Twelve other promising writers are also included in the anthology: 2015 Caine Prize winner, Namwali Serpell (Zambia), NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), Chilufya Chilangwa (Zambia), Tope Folarin (Nigeria), Elnathan John (Nigeria), Billy Kahora (Kenya), Bwanga Kapumpa (Zambia), FT Kola (South Africa), Kafula Mwila (Zambia), Masande Ntshanga (South Africa), Timwa Lipenga (Malawi), and Okwiri Oduor (Kenya).

Dr. Lizzy Attree is co-founder of the Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature. She has a PhD from SOAS, University of London, and she is the author of Blood on the Page (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), a collection of interviews with the first African writers from Zimbabwe and South Africa to write about HIV and AIDS. She is a director on the board of Short Story Day Africa and was director of the Caine Prize from 2014 to 2018. She also sits on the board of Writivism, which is part of the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE). In 2015, she taught African literature at Kings College London, and she will teach world literature at Richmond, the American International University in London, in the autumn. She has just completed an Arts Council–funded project on African footballers at Chelsea and Arsenal, and her associated anthology of poems, Thinking Outside the Penalty Box, was published by the Poetry Society.