Nigerian writer Lesley Nneka wins 2019 Caine prize

Nigerian author Lesley Arima Nneka was yesterday announced the winner of the 2019 prestigious Caine Prize for her story on an alternate universe where women move naked until they are married.

Titled Skinned, Arima creates a world where it is easy to tell a married woman from one that's not; the married one is clothed and the unmarried one is not, even when the unmarried one earns enough to buy the best clothes, she is not supposed to.

According to the website africainwords, Arimah puts a new spin on the narrative of gender inequality in Skinned.
"The riveting piece presents for discussion issues of women’s inequality in a patriarchal society without oversimplifying the matter. It would seem that Arimah is asking the reader to locate the body as the site of a woman’s oppression, but she is doing more than just that. She is asking the reader to take on the gender issue in its entire complexity."

The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer published in the English language.

Founded in 2000 in the United Kingdom, the £10,000 (about Shs45,000,000) prize was named in memory of Sir Michael Harris Caine, former Chairman of Booker Group plc, the company that founded the prize.

Born and raised in the UK, the Nigerian author told the BBC that her story was inspired by a conversation with a friend about how marriage in Nigeria "gives unconventional women cover to be themselves".

"She is quite strange and her strangeness was something her parents had warned her that she should get rid of in order to get married," Arimah said of her friend.
The Caine Prize has in the past been won by writers from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sudan among others. Nigeria has won it more, five times, Kenya on the other hand has four wins.

Uganda, through Monica Arac de Nyeko won the 2007 prize for her story Jambula Tree.
Jambula Tree was an unapologetic story that tackles an issue many Ugandans were not ready to talk about; Britain’s Independent newspaper and a judge in a number of prizes, including the prestigious Booker, called the affair an “earthquake which shakes the moral foundations because the shocking couple are two girls who love without shame.”

On Arima's win, Peter Kimani, Kenyan author and the chair of the judging panel told BBC that the story was a unique retake of women's struggle for inclusion.
"Arimah's Skinned defamiliarises the familiar to topple social hierarchies, challenge traditions and envision new possibilities for women of the world," he said.

Arima is the winner of the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa and before her win earlier this week, she has twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize.