Nigeria’s Rotimi Babatunde has won
the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading
literary award, for his short story entitled ‘Bombay's Republic’ from
'Mirabilia Review' Vol. 3.9 (Lagos, 2011).http://mirabilia.webs.com/
The Chair of Judges, Bernardine
Evaristo MBE, announced Rotimi Babatunde as the winner of the £10,000 prize at
a dinner held this evening (Monday, 2 July) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Bernardine Evaristo said: “Bombay's
Republic vividly describes the story of a
Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma campaign of World War Two. It is ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of Independence.”
Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma campaign of World War Two. It is ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of Independence.”
Rotimi Babatunde’s fiction and poems
have been published in Africa, Europe and America in journals which include Die
Aussenseite des Elementes and Fiction on the Web and in
anthologies including Little Drops and A Volcano of Voices. He is
a winner of the Meridian Tragic Love Story Competition organised by the BBC
World Service and his plays have been staged and presented by institutions
which include the Halcyon Theatre, Chicago and the Institute for Contemporary
Arts. He is currently taking part in a collaboratively produced piece at the
Royal Court and the Young Vic as part of World Stages for a World City. Rotimi lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.
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