ELIGIBILITY:

The story must have been published in the five years preceding the submissions deadline. For 2024 eligibility, the judges will only consider work published between 1st April 2019 and 25th March 2024.

Entries must be more than 3,000 words or less than 10,000 words.

Entries must be submitted by a publisher. This includes publishers of physical and digital books, literary journals, magazines, and arts oriented websites.

Writers must be over 18 years of age at the time of submission.

Self-published and unpublished short stories are not eligible.

Publishers are encouraged to submit multiple short stories as long as they do not submit more than one story by the same author.

Stories may only be entered for consideration for The Caine Prize for African Writing once. Unfortunately, this means that you may not re-submit a story for consideration, even if it was not selected for the shortlist.

Genres not eligible for entry include: novels, children’s stories, factual writing, academic essays, plays, poetry, autobiography/biography, and any work that does not constitute a fictional short story.

Submissions must specify which African country the author comes from and the short story word count.

Publishers are required to upload a ‘publisher’s letter’ with each submission. See program website for more information.

BENEFIT:

£10,000 prize to be won.

The winner and shortlisted writers will be invited to participate in events in Africa, London and elsewhere should resources and circumstances permit. In these cases, there will be travel award granted to each of the shortlisted candidates.