It collects the winner and shortlist together with stories written at the Celtel Caine Prize Writers Workshop in early 2007. The shortlisted authors are: Sefi Atta from Nigeria, Darrel Bristow-Bovey from South Africa, Muthoni Garland from Kenya, and Laila Lalami from Morocco.

In this definitive collection, Julia Darling's indomitable women emerge laughing, shouting and snarling. Darling's cast of aunties, sisters, mothers and grandmothers do battle with house keys and knitting needles as they deal with cancer, teen angst and tyranny. Their heartbreakingly funny stories portray women making their own worlds - of survival, love and loyalty. This exquisite book will enfold the reader in an origami of vivacious, witty narratives, exploring the fault lines in everyday life. `Julia Darling is a true original. Her particular way of looking at the world is infectious. Time and time again, the reader thinks, yes, that's it, exactly. Here's a whole cast of characters who will win over your heart.' Jackie Kay

In Makuck's fourth collection of short stories he once again explores the fertile territory of small, rural American towns. With tenderness and clarity, he excavates the mundane surface of everyday lives to reveal compassionate characters who are unexpectedly vulnerable. The stories in Wins and Losses are set in a car, a courtroom, a university English department, a sports bar, a jetliner, a laundromat. Characters struggle with regret, desire, expectations, and a need to win when loss is inevitable. A high school student whose father was killed in a car crash and who can speak openly only to his girlfriend delivers prescriptions for a pharmacy and learns much about people and values in the course of his deliveries. A lawyer recalls a dubious family friend, an undercover cop, who pressured him as a young boy toward guns and football. A recent widow finds a cardboard box on her front porch only to discover it contains the body of her dog. A young woman takes her mother to a cardiologist and, while in the waiting room, gets into an argument with a wealthy political conservative at great cost to both of them. In the tradition of Cheever and Updike, Makuck's stories give us characters struggling with questions of what really matters.