{"id":27,"date":"2019-03-22T12:24:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T12:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=27"},"modified":"2019-03-22T12:24:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T12:24:40","slug":"hotel-africa-the-2018-short-story-day-africa-prize-longlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"Hotel Africa: The 2018 Short Story day Africa Prize Longlist"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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[Originally announced exclusively on The Johannesburg Review of Books<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The longlist for the Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction<\/a> 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 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.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s prize theme is \u2018Hotel Africa\u2019 .<\/p>\n

The resulting anthology from the longlisted entries, Hotel Africa: New Short Fiction from Africa<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018This year\u2019s longlist was particularly difficult to decide\u2019, SSDA Executive Editor Rachel Zadok says. \u2018Like 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\u2019s voice that\u2019s almost impossible to define, but when you see it, it creates a buzz in your brain. Of course, this doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re 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\u2019ve gone from \u201cgood\u201d to \u2018\u201dwow, fantastic!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re also seeing a greater number of stories from previously under-represented countries. It\u2019s 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 \u201cHappy City Hotel\u201d 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\u2019t make the list this year: don\u2019t give up. We\u2019ve got our eyes on you.<\/p>\n

\u2018We 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

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

The 2018 Short Story Day Africa longlist<\/strong><\/p>\n