Booker Prize recognises African women

Diverse Booker shortlist features two African women - 30th November 2020

The shortlist for this year's Booker Prize is the most diverse in its 52 year history, featuring, for the first time, two female African writers. Ethiopian American Maaza Mengiste and Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga both made the shortlist, and it's hoped their recognition will bring African literature to greater prominence.

The most significant and high-profile literary prize in the UK, the Booker annually awards £50,000 to the author of the best English language novel that year. From its inception in 1969, only novels written by UK, Commonwealth and Irish authors were eligible to receive the prize. However, in 2014, the criteria were widened to include any English language novel published in the UK - a change that’s proved controversial..

Dangarembga has been shortlisted for 'This Mournable Body', the final volume in a trilogy that began with her 1988 work 'Nervous Conditions'. The novel follows a Zimbabwean woman struggling to make a living in 1990s post-colonial Harare, where Dangarembga currently faces charges due to her participation in peaceful anti-government demonstrations protesting corruption.

Mengiste is the only Ethiopian ever to appear on the Booker shortlist, nominated for 'The Shadow King', a tale of ordinary people fighting back against Italian invaders set against the backdrop of the second Italo-Ethiopian war in 1935.

The two novelists welcomed their Booker nods for the impact it may have on those coming up behind them.

"I do think that maybe it is inspiring for younger writers who are earlier in their careers, who realise that sometimes it doesn't just happen all at once, that it takes time and you have to be dedicated and to really have a story you want to tell," said Dangarembga.

For Mengiste, "It is a confirmation of the talent that exists on the continent. It is letting African writers know that their work is noticed, it is being read".

Douglas Stuart, a Scottish American, won this year’s Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain, his debut novel about a boy in 1980s Glasgow trying to support his mother.