Nigerian and American based writer, Lesley Nneka Arimah, a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Writing, has won the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writ
Nigerian and American based writer, Lesley Nneka Arimah, a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Writing, has won the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story entitled “Skinned”, published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (Issue 53) 2018.
Dr. Peter Kimani, Chair of Judges of the Caine Prize for African Writing, often described as Africa’s leading literary award, announced Lesley as the winner of the £10,000 prize at an award dinner on Monday 8 July. The ceremony was held for the third time in Senate House, in partnership with SOAS and the Centre for African Studies.
‘Skinned’ envisions a society in which young girls are ceremonially ‘uncovered’ and must marry in order to regain the right to be clothed. It tells the story of Ejem, a young woman uncovered at the age of fifteen yet ‘unclaimed’ in adulthood, and her attempts to negotiate a rigidly stratified society following the breakdown of a protective friendship with the married Chidinma. With a wit, prescience, and a wicked imagination, ‘Skinned’ is a bold and unsettling tale of bodily autonomy and womanhood, and the fault lines along which solidarities are formed and broken.
Announcing the award, Peter Kimani said of the book written by Lesley Nneka Arimah, ‘Skinned’ defamiliarizes the familiar to topple social hierarchies, challenge traditions and envision new possibilities for women of the world. Using a sprightly diction, she invents a dystopian universe inhabited by unforgettable characters where friendship is tested, innocence is lost, and readers gain a new understanding of life.”
