The Caine prize for African writing shortlist – in pictures

Pede Hollist is the only author from outside Nigeria on the shortlist. Born in Sierra Leone, he is now an associate professor of English at The University of Tampa, Florida. His first novel, So the Path Does Not Die was published last year by Langaa Press in Cameroon. He is nominated for Foreign Aid, which finds Balogun returning to Sierra Leone after 20 years in the US
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Abubakar Adam Ibrahim lives in Abuja, Nigeria, where he holds a Gabriel García Márquez fellowship in cultural journalism. His short story collection, The Whispering Trees, was published last year by Parresia in Lagos. He is shortlisted for The Whispering Trees, in which Salim wakes up after an accident to find he has lost his sight
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Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chinelo Okparanta is a fellow in fiction at Colgate University in the US. Her collection of short stories, Happiness, Like Water was published earlier this year by Granta in the UK. She was shortlisted for America, whose narrator is en route to collect a US visa in Lagos
Read America (pdf) Photograph: Carmen Machado

Elnathan John trained as a lawyer in Nigeria, but now works full time as a writer. His story Bayan Layi, which earned him his place on the Caine prize shortlist, tells of two street children who sleep under a Kuka tree and how they become embroiled in electoral violence
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Tope Folarin studied at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, and now lives and works in Washington DC. His shortlisted story, Miracle, is set in a Texas evangelical church, where a blind pastor has come to demonstrate his healing powers
Read Miracle (pdf) Photograph: pr