South African author Lidudumalingani has won the 2016 Caine prize for African writing for his short story Memories We Lost. The £10,000 award, for the year’s best short story by an African author writing in English, was presented on Monday night at a ceremony in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
Memories We Lost is told by a girl who acts as protector of her sister, whose serious mental illness is badly misunderstood in a South African village.
“The first thing that this thing took from her, from us, was speech, and then it took our memories,” the narrator writes. “She began speaking in a language that was unfamiliar, her words trembling as if trying to relay unthinkable revelations from the gods. The memories faded one after the other until our past was a blur.
Her situation deteriorates as her care is entrusted to Nkunzi, a local man who employs traditional techniques to rid people of supposed demons.
Chair of judges, the writer and academic Delia Jarrett-Macauley, praised the story for exploring “a difficult subject – how traditional beliefs in a rural community are used to tackle schizophrenia. This is a troubling piece, depicting the great love between two young siblings in a beautifully drawn Eastern Cape. Multi-layered, and gracefully narrated, [it] leaves the reader full of sympathy and wonder at the plight of its protagonists.”
Lidudumalingani, who is also a film-maker and photographer, said: “Winning is really exciting as it will promote my story to a winder audience. And that’s what every writer wants: for more people to read their work.”
Memories We Lost is available to read here.
Alongside Jarrett-Macauley, the other judges were actor Adjoa Andoh; founding member of the Kenyan writers’ collective, Storymoja, professor of African American Studies at Georgetown University, Robert J Patterson; and South African writer and 2006 Caine Prize winner, Mary Watson.
The other stories on the shortlist (which can all be ready by following the links) were: The Lifebloom Gift by Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya); What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) ; Genesis by Tope Folarin (Nigeria) and At Your Requiem by Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe)
