As the winner of the prize which is described as ‘Africa’s leading literary award’, the US based Nigerian will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice and will be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September. ‘Miracle’ is a story set in Texas in an evangelical Nigerian church where the congregation has gathered to witness the healing powers of a blind Pastor-Prophet.
Religion and the gullibility of those caught in the deceit that sometimes comes with faith rise to the surface as a young boy volunteers to be healed and begins to believe in miracles.
By winning the prize for 2013, Tope is succeeding another Nigeria; Rotimi Babatunde, who picked the prize in 2012 with his short story, Bombay Republic. According to the Caine Prize, Rotimi Babatunde recently co-authored Feast, a Royal Court/Young Vic co-production which ran at the Young Vic as part of World Stages for a World City. Tope was educated at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Master’s degrees as a Rhodes Scholar.
He is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Institute for Policy Studies and Callaloo, and he serves on the board of the Hurston/Wright Foundation. He lives and works in Washington DC.
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