Keabetswe Molotsi’s short story Matlhalerwa was announced the winner of the Kendeka Prize for African Literature 2023 at a ceremony in Thika, Kenya on Saturday, October 7, 2023
The Kendeka Prize for African Literature is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short story either fiction or creative non-fiction. Previous winners of the prize founded by Kenyan writer and publisher Andrew Maina have been Jenny Robson (2021) and Scholastica Moraa (2022)
The jury for 2023 chaired by Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu alongside, Richard Ali, and Pasomi Mucha looked at entries from 25 African nations. They announced the longlist on September 19 before they revealed the shortlist on Thursday, September 26.
The short story Matlhalerwa by Keabetswe Molotsi (Botswana) was declared the winner at a ceremony overseen by new Kendeka Prize Chairman Kamau Wa Goro at the Fourteen Falls Leisure Lodge, Thika, Kenya. Coming second and third were We Came for Mangoes by Hussani Abdulrahim (Nigeria), and The Lance Corporal’s Door by Shedrack Opeyemi Akanbi (Nigeria) respectively. The three cash prizes are 100,000, 50,000, and 25,000 all in Kenya shillings.
Keabetswe Molotsi is a Motswana writer, artist, and English teacher who has been teaching in a secondary school for over 7 years. She initially graduated from the University of Botswana with an LLB but changed careers to pursue teaching. Today her focus is on a collection of short stories and self-publishing her poetry book.
During the ceremony, the anthology of the long-listed stories in the 2022 prize was unveiled. The 13 long-selected stories in years’ prize shall be published in another anthology to be released in 2024.
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