The Caine Prize for African Writing has unveiled the judges for its special Best of Caine Award, an honorary prize that will select the most outstanding story from the prize’s 25-year history. Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah will chair the panel, joined by Ugandan novelist Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and Ghanaian film and music executive Tony Tagoe.

The Best of Caine is a milestone moment for the prize, which since its founding in 2000 has become one of the most visible platforms for African short fiction. The award will recognize one story among the 25 that have won the Caine Prize to date, placing the legacy of African short story writing in the spotlight as the prize enters its next quarter-century.

Gurnah, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021 and previously served as a Caine Prize judge over twenty years ago, framed the honorary award as a moment of reflection:

“For 25 years, the Caine Prize for African Writing has been at the forefront of both facilitating the emergence of new literary talent from the Continent, and honouring seasoned authors who push the needle in their approach to storytelling. This year’s honorary award presents a unique opportunity for reflection, not just on the 25 stories and authors that have shaped the Prize’s legacy, but also on the years ahead, and the narratives the Prize seeks to platform.”

Gurnah is the author of ten novels, including Paradise, By the Sea, and Afterlives. His leadership of the panel signals the symbolic weight of the Best of Caine Award. His co-panelist Makumbi is the author of Kintu, a brilliant historical fiction that critics and scholars agree has transformed contemporary Ugandan literature. In 2018, she won the $100,000 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. Tony Tagoe is a co-producer of Beasts of No Nation and Black Earth Rising, as well as co-founder of the iconic Deal Real music store. His inclusion in the panel brings a multi-disciplinary perspective to the judging process.

The judging panel will convene this month, with the winner announced at the inaugural Words Across Waters: Afro Lit Fest, hosted at the British Library in London on 27 September 2025.

By assembling a panel that spans literature, film, and cultural strategy, the Best of Caine underscores the Caine Prize’s role not only as a literary award but also as a cultural institution shaping the global reception of African writing.