Kendeka Prize key details:
- Host country: Kenya
- Open to: Africans
- For: Writers
- Deadline: 31st May, 2021
The Kendeka Prize for African Literature which is administered by Solano Publications is currently inviting entries from African writers for it’s 2021 contest.
The Kendeka prize aims at giving African writers, especially the unpublished a platform on which to showcase their work. Through this platform, more people will have access to their work which will in turn inspire more writing. The Kendeka prize will be awarded to the best piece of unpublished short story, either fiction or creative non-fiction.
Through this Prize, Africans will have an opportunity of not only telling their own stories, but the freedom of telling them, as they are. This is because for a long time, the ‘African Story’ has been told by foreigners, a people who purport to know Africa. They have ended up with a story of Africa, a single story of a hungry, warring, ailing and backward people, a story of a continent full of calamities. This is their new version of the story of the Dark Continent!
This kind of African story is what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns against and calls it ‘The Danger of a Single Story’. She goes on to tell us “That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise”. This is the paradise that Kendeka Prize for African Literature aims at regaining.
Kendeka Prize Eligibility Criteria
In order to participate in the Kendeka Prize entrants must meet the criteria’s below:
- Entrants must be born in, or are citizens of any African country.
- One entry per writer.
- Manuscripts should be of between 3000 and 5000 words.
- All entries must be in English.
- Entries should be attached in Microsoft Word or Rich Text format, with the title of the story as the file name.
- The first page of the story should include the name of the story and the number of words.
- The entry must be typed in Times New Roman 12 point font with 1.5 line spacing.
- Entries must be sent as attachments to an email.
- The email to which the story is attached must include the legal name of the writer, telephone number, a short Bio, age, and country of residence.
Kendeka Prize Benefits
- The first prize will be KShs 100,000 while the 2nd and the 3rdshall receive Kshs 50,000 and 25,000 for respectively.
- The remaining two of the five shortlisted stories shall receive KShs 5,000 each.
other Literary contest that might interest you
- The Praxis Magazine EndSARS writing contest 2021
- Toyin Falola Prize 2021
- The Restless Books Prize 2021
Kendeka Prize Application Procedure
All longlisted stories shall be published in an anthology titled I Am listening, 2021 Edition. The prize shall be awarded at a ceremony to be held during the Nairobi International Book Fair.
Send unpublished manuscripts to [email protected]
For more information visit the official website of the 2021 Kendeka Prize for African Lietrature