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Renowned Zimbabwean writer and academic, Dr Tanaka Chidora, is the inaugural winner of the Carnelian Heart Publishing Short Story Prize for Africa 2024.
Announcing the winner and two runners-up on their social media handles, Carnelian Heart Publishing said that they received more than one hundred submissions from all over Africa. From those submissions, 20 entries were shortlisted and will constitute a short story anthology that will be published later this year. Out of those 20 entries, three entries (one winner and two runners-up) were then selected.
Posting on his X account after the announcement, Chidora said that his winning short story, ‘The Cafeteria,’ was written in an unusual style to depict what it felt like to be helpless in the face of an impending loss. As part of the winner’s package, Chidora received USD 150 from Carnelian Heart Publishing, a publishing contract, and will receive 2 copies of the short story anthology.
Speaking about the contract he has signed with Carnelian Heart Publishing, Chidora had this to say: “Many people know me as a poet because of my collection, Because Sadness is Beautiful?, and the poems I share on my social media platforms. But I am also a short story writer and novelist. Since the winning entry was a short story, I intend to submit a collection of short stories to Carnelian Heart this year. However, the timelines also depend on the state of my forthcoming novel which has been undergoing editing for some time now.”
The Carnelian Heart Publishing Short Story Prize for Africa is run by UK-based Zimbabwean publisher and award-winning author, Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure, who is responsible for publishing many award-winning works of fiction in the last three years.
Chidora is no stranger to literature prizes. In 2021, the manuscript of his forthcoming novel, Carrying a Country on Your Forehead, was one of the final three submissions from which a winner was selected for the 2021 Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize which is annually awarded to an outstanding first novel manuscript from an African writer.
The winner walks away with a USD 12,000 advance payment and a publishing contract. In 2023, the same manuscript was longlisted for the Island Prize which is run by Booker Prize-shortlisted writer Karen Jennings. According to Chidora, the manuscript of his debut novel has now found a publisher.
“So, let us treat the short story collection as a trailer to the novel,” announced Chidora from his base in Zomba where he is lecturing in the Department of Literary Studies at the University of Malawi.
Chidora is also the Shona translator of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, The Book of Not. The translation, Hakuna Zvakadaro, was published towards the end of last year by Harare-based publisher, House of Books.