Awarded to mark the 25th anniversary of the Caine Prize, the Best of Caine Award honours the most outstanding winning story from the Prize’s 25 year history. Hitting Budapest originally won the Caine Prize in 2011.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
The Caine Prize for African Writing has announced Zimbabwean Writer, NoViolet Bulawayo, as the winner of the 2025 Best of Caine Award for her short story, Hitting Budapest. The announcement was made by Ellah Wakatama OBE, Chair of the Caine Prize, at the inaugural Words Across Waters Afro Lit Festival on Saturday, 27 September 2025.
Awarded to mark the 25th anniversary of the Caine Prize, the Best of Caine Award honours the most outstanding winning story from the Prize’s 25 year history. Hitting Budapest, a story about six poor children who sneak into a wealthy neighbourhood called Budapest to steal guavas, originally won the Caine Prize in 2011. Bulawayo uses the story to critique social inequalities and highlight the innocence and vulnerabilities of children.
Speaking on Bulawayo’s short story, Nobel Laureate Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Chair of this year’s judging panel, remarked that while it was a tremendously impressive collection of stories to read through, the decision to award the Best of Caine Prize to No Violet Bulawayo was unanimous and swift. “The judges were impressed with the control of voice the story demonstrated and the superb evocation of a childhood vision,” Prof. Gurnah said.
Other members of this year’s judging panel are Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, the award-winning Ugandan novelist and short story writer who won 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and teaches Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Tony Tagoe, the acclaimed Ghanaian film producer, music executive, and creative strategist whose career spans music, film, brand partnerships, and cultural advocacy.
Receiving the award, NoViolet Bulawayo said: “I wish to thank the Caine Prize and the judging panel for this incredible honor. Winning the Caine Prize as an unpublished writer back in 2011 was truly the kind of defining highlight to jumpstart a career. It brought my work to a global audience, affirmed my literary path, and strengthened my confidence and commitment to writing so that finishing a first novel worthy of the recognition bestowed on me by Africa’s most prestigious literary award—my first ever recognition—was non-negotiable.
“Now, receiving the Best of Caine Award these many years later feels like a moment to reflect on the journey. I warmly congratulate the twenty-four remarkable winning authors and finalists whose works have helped define the prize up to this moment. That many have gone on to build distinguished careers, producing diverse and influential works that continue to challenge, expand, enrich, and reimagine what African literature can be, speaks to the indelible impact of the prize.
It is twenty-five years of consistency, excellence, and vision—our present is vibrant, and the future promises even more. And it is to the future writers still to come, those whose voices we are yet to hear, that I dedicate this Best of Caine Award—I am truly excited to read you all, and witnessing how you continue to shape the landscape of African literature.”
NoViolet Bulawayo is the author of the acclaimed novels, Glory (2022) and We Need New Names (2013). Her books have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction , the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Rathbones Folio Prize. Bulawayo has won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, among others. She currently teaches at Cornell University, where she obtained her MFA.
The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award that aims to bring African writing to a wider audience. Named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker Plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years, the Prize has played a pivotal role in the African writing space, propelling the careers of African writers and offering global visibility and opportunities, including publishing deals and writing fellowships.
The Prize’s shortlisted stories are published in a Caine Prize Anthology by Cassava Republic Press in the UK and publishers on the African continent. NoViolet Bulawayo’s winning story, Hitting Budapest, is available to read here.