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| Bryony Rheam. Photo courtesy of Violette Kee-Tui |
2019 has started well for Bryony Rheam. The Arabic translation of her debut novel This September Sun has been published by Al Arabi and launched at the Cairo International Book Fair, and now her short story ‘Supping at the Fountain of Lethe’ has been longlisted for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction. Bryony's second novel All Come to Dust is to be published by amaBooks later this year. Congratulations to Bryony, to the other Zimbabwean longlisted writer Chido Muchemwa, and to the other 19 longlisted writers from across Africa.
The longlist was released through the Johannesburg Review of Books (https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2019/03/04/the-jrb-daily-2018-short-story-day-africa-prize-longlist-announced/)
The longlist for the Short
Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction has been announced.
The prize was founded in 2013, and is open to
any African citizen or African person living in the diaspora.
SSDA awards prize money of US$800 (about
R11,000) for first place, $200 for second place, and $100 for third place. The
previous winners of the prize are Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor, Sibongile Fisher,
Cat Hellisen, Diane Awerbuck and Okwiri Oduor.
This year’s prize theme is ‘Hotel Africa’:
The resulting anthology from the longlisted
entries, Hotel Africa: New Short Fiction from
Africa, will be edited by Helen Moffett, who will select three editing
fellows to work alongside her as part of the SSDA/Worldreader Editing
Mentorship, now in its third year.
‘This year’s longlist was particularly difficult
to decide’, SSDA Executive Editor Rachel Zadok says. ‘Like last year, the
slushpile was read by a team of professional editors with an eye on
development, so that no talent, no matter how raw, was overlooked. Instead of
looking simply to the most polished stories to make up the list, we looked at
the originality of the story. We looked for that sparkle in a writer’s voice
that’s almost impossible to define, but when you see it, it creates a buzz in
your brain. Of course, this doesn’t mean that there are no polished writers on
the list, just that the playing field was more equal. The stories on the
longlist each explore the theme in unique and fascinating ways.
‘We’re pleased to see that quite a few stories
come from writers who attended the Flow Workshops, and that writers who have
previously been longlisted and have participated in Flow Workshops and the
Development Editing Process, like Harriet Anena and Lester Walbrugh, have come
so far in their storytelling. They’ve gone from “good” to ‘”wow, fantastic!”
‘We’re also seeing a greater number of stories
from previously under-represented countries. It’s wonderful to be publishing
writers like Adam El Shalakany from Egypt, who has entered the SSDA Prize in
the past but has never been placed. His story “Happy City Hotel” was one of the
unanimous decisions, of which there were only six out of the twenty-one. After
months of reading, which culminated in three and a half hours of deliberation,
arguing and tears, each of us walked away a little heartbroken for the
favourites we had to sacrifice. So to the writers who didn’t make the list this
year: don’t give up. We’ve got our eyes on you.
‘We want to extend express thanks to our
sponsors, the Goethe-Institut, the Miles Morland Foundation, Worldreader and
the Beit Trust, and our publishing partner New Internationalist.’
Congratulations to the twenty-one long listed
writers!
The 2018 Short Story Day
Africa longlist
- ‘The
Satans Inside My Jimmy’ by Harriet Anena (Uganda)
- ‘The
Jollof Cook-off’ by Nkiacha Atemnkeng (Cameroon)
- ‘The
Last Resident’ by Jayne Bauling (South Africa)
- ‘Mr
Thompson’ by Noel Cheruto (Kenya)
- ‘The
Layover’ by Anna Degenaar (South Africa)
- ‘A
Miracle In Valhalla’ by Nnamdi Fred (Nigeria)
- ‘Of
Birds and Bees’ by Davina Kawuma (Uganda)
- ‘Maintenance
Check’ by Alinafe Malonje (Malawi)
- ‘Why
Don’t You Live in the North?’ by Wamuwi Mbao (South Africa)
- ‘Slow
Road to the Winburg Hotel’ by Paul Morris (South Africa)
- ‘The
Snore Monitor’ by Chido Muchemwa (Zimbabwe)
- ‘Outside
Riad Dahab’ by Chourouq Nasri (Morocco)
- ‘Broken
English’ by Adorah Nworah (Nigeria)
- ‘Queens’
Children’s Little Feet’ by Godwin Oghenero Estella (Nigeria)
- ‘Door
of No Return’ by Natasha Omokhodion-Banda (Zambia)
- ‘An
Abundance of Lies’ by Faith Oneya (Kenya)
- ‘The
Match’ by Troy Onyango (Kenya)
- ‘Supping
at the Fountain of Lethe’ by Bryony Rheam (Zimbabwe)
- ‘Happy
City Hotel’ by Adam El Shalakany (Egypt)
- ‘The
Space(s) Between Us’ by Lester Walbrugh (South Africa)
- ‘Shithole’
by Michael Yee (South Africa)
SSDA is one of the most successful short story
organisations on the continent, with all of its previous anthologies receiving
significant critical acclaim. Two stories from the 2013 anthology, Feast, Famine & Potluck, were shortlisted for The
Caine Prize for African Writing, with that year’s SSDA winner, Okwiri Oduor,
going on to win the award. Terra Incognita (2014) and Water (2015) also received wide praise, including
reviews from the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Sunday Times and the
Financial Mail.
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