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Writer's pictureIvan Muguya

Winner of the Caine Prize for a short tale that was deemed "exquisite" is Kenyan author Idza Luhumyo


Okey Ndibe, after taking in the five finalists—Joshua Chizoma (Nigeria), Nana-Ama Danquah (Ghana), Hannah Giorgis (Ethiopia), Idza Luhumyo (Kenya), and Billie McTernan (Ireland)—scattered about the huge domed hall with Dale Chihuly's gorgonesque chandelier dangling precariously (Ghana). In a somber tone, the judges said, "You are all winners, but we are in a capitalist world, and we have to award a first prize, and that belongs to Idza Luhumyo from Kenya."

Ndibe praised Idza's novel, Five Years Next Sunday, for being "incandescent" and "written elegantly," as it tells the narrative of an outcast lady in Kenya's Coast Province who ultimately decides the fate of her society.

Popula, Jalada Africa, the Writivism Anthology, MaThoko's publications, ZAM Magazine in Amsterdam, and African Arguments have all published articles by Idza. She won the Short Story Day Africa Prize in 2018, and the inaugural Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award in 2020.

Idza, a lawyer and screenwriter by trade, told the BBC she loved the "Fitting the narrative into a narrower frame" required by short story writing. She said that now that she has won the award, she plans to begin writing a novel and that readers can expect to hear from her "in a couple of years."

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