{"id":15,"date":"2020-10-08T11:12:48","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T11:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=15"},"modified":"2020-10-08T11:12:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T11:12:48","slug":"disruption-announcing-the-longlist-of-the-2019-short-story-day-africa-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"Disruption: Announcing The Longlist Of The 2019 Short Story Day Africa Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n

\"disruption_collage_LR.png\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

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[Originally announced exclusively on The Johannesburg Review of Books<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The longlist for the seventh annual Short Story Day Africa Prize has been announced!<\/p>\n

The prize was founded in 2013, and is open to any African citizen or African person living in the diaspora.<\/p>\n

SSDA awards prize money of US$800 (about R13,500) for first place, $200 for second place, and $100 for third place. The previous winners of the prize are Adam El Shalakany, Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor, Sibongile Fisher, Cat Hellisen, Diane Awerbuck and Okwiri Oduor.<\/p>\n

Presciently this year\u2019s Prize theme is \u2018Disruption\u2019. <\/p>\n

The resulting anthology from the longlisted entries, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa,<\/em> will be edited by Rachel Zadok, founder of Short Story Day Africa and author of Sister-Sister <\/em>and Gem Squash Tokoloshe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Zadok says:<\/p>\n

\u2018This year, as always, the first round of reading was blind. An experienced team of editors read with a keen eye for original writing that exhibited ingenuity and a strong voice. We couldn\u2019t have foreseen the disruptions that Covid-19 would cause, from team members contracting the virus, to not being able to access funding, to key team members who volunteer their time no longer being able to dedicate the many hours it takes to put together a longlist due to no longer having secure incomes. <\/p>\n

Nor could we meet in person due to Covid-19 restrictions to debate the long-long list as a team. Instead, we discussed and defended our favourite stories in the columns of an excel spreadsheet. We looked for writing that had, at its core, that special something that is difficult to define but that shines through and sticks with the reader. The longlisted stories all tackle the theme of \u2018Disruption\u2019 in ingenious ways and represent a range of genres, from Innocent Ilo\u2019s imaginative exploration of a post-apocalyptic African village, to Victor Forna\u2019s stylistic take on the destruction of humanity. Masiyaleti Mbewe\u2019s brutal tale of Apartheid and climate change through the eyes of a time-traveling cyborg sits alongside Genna Gardini\u2019s diverting allegory of companionship and an escaped exotic pet. There are many other wonderful takes on the theme and we believe each story on the list has something new to offer to the African literary world. <\/p>\n

The list this year features stories from across the continent. We\u2019re especially excited to be publishing stories from Libya and Sierra Leone, both firsts for Short Story Day Africa. We\u2019re also thrilled to be publishing our first-ever translated story, \u2018Armando\u2019s Virtuous Crime\u2019 by Najwa Bin Shatwan, brilliantly translated from Arabic into English by Sawad Hussain. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re grateful to all the writers for trusting us with their stories. Judging this year was extremely close-cut, with stories in the metaphorical arena as we tried to whittle the list down to only twenty-one. To the writers who didn\u2019t make it: We encourage you to keep writing, and keep submitting. <\/p>\n

We\u2019d like to express our thanks to all the incredible people who donated towards the project or bought copies of Hotel Africa<\/em>, available on Amazon<\/a>, and our publishing partner New Internationalist.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to the twenty-one long listed writers!\u2019<\/p>\n

The shortlist \u2013 first, second, and third place \u2013 will be announced in 2021. <\/p>\n

The 2019\/2020 Short Story Day Africa Longlist:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.       \u2018A Defiant Departure\u2019 by MacSmart Ojiludu \u2013 Nigeria <\/p>\n

2.       \u2018Another Zombie Story\u2019 by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola \u2013 Nigeria <\/p>\n

3.       \u2018Armando\u2019s Virtuous Crime\u2019 by Najwa Bin Shatwan translated into English by Sawad Hussain \u2013 Libya <\/p>\n

4.       \u2018Before the Rains Came\u2019 by Nadia Ahidjo-Iya \u2013 Cameroon <\/p>\n

5.       \u2018Before We Die Unwritten\u2019 by Innocent Ilo \u2013 Nigeria <\/p>\n

6.       \u2018Between the Hard Earth and Dry Heaven\u2019 by Melusi Nkomo \u2013 Zimbabwe<\/p>\n

7.       \u2018D\u0254r\u0259’s Song\u2019 by Victor Forna \u2013 Sierra Leone <\/p>\n

8.       \u2018Enough\u2019 by Nicholas Dawn \u2013 South Africa<\/p>\n

9.       \u2018The Fishtank Crab\u2019 by Genna Gardini \u2013 South Africa <\/p>\n

10.   \u2018The Girl Named Uku\/phaza\/mi\/se\/ka\u2019 by Philisiwe Twijnstra \u2013 South Africa <\/p>\n

11.   \u2018The Girl Who Always Laughed\u2019 by Doreen Anyango \u2013 Uganda <\/p>\n

12.   \u2018Kin\u2019 by Masiyaleti Mbewe \u2013 Zambia<\/p>\n

13.   \u2018Laatlammer\u2019 by Julia Louw \u2013 South Africa <\/p>\n

14.   \u2018Lycaon Pictus\u2019 by Liam Brickhill \u2013 Zimbabwe <\/p>\n

15.   \u2018The Mother\u2019 by Jacob M\u2019hango \u2013 Zambia <\/p>\n

16.   \u2018Objects in the Mirror Are Stranger Than They Appear\u2019 by Kevin Mogotsi \u2013 Botswana <\/p>\n

17.   \u2018Shelter\u2019 by Mbozi Haimbe \u2013 Zambia <\/p>\n

18.   \u2018The Sound of Betrayal\u2019 by Idza Luhumyo – Botswana <\/p>\n

19.   \u2018Static\u2019 by Alithnayn Abdulkareem \u2013 Nigeria<\/p>\n

20.   \u2018Waiting to Die\u2019 by Yefon Isabelle \u2013 Cameroon <\/p>\n

21.   \u2018When the Levees Break\u2019 by Edwin Okolo \u2013 Nigeria <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Originally announced exclusively on The Johannesburg Review of Books] The longlist for the seventh annual Short Story Day Africa Prize 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 R13,500) for first place, $200 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}