Now in its nineteenth year the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa's leading literary prize, and is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. Kenyan writer Makena Onjerika is the 2018 winner for her short story entitled "Fanta Blackcurrant". This collection brings together the five 2018 shortlisted stories, along with stories written at the Caine Prize Writers' Workshop, taking place April 2018.; The prize was launched in 2000 to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally. The focus on the short story reflects the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition.; Judges are drawn from different literary fields including eminent journalists, broadcasters and academics with expertise and a connection to literature in Africa. Five stories are selected for the shortlist by the judges.;The 2018 judging panel comprises: Dinaw Mengestu, journalist, author and graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University's M.F.A programme in fiction; Alain Mabanckou, prolific Francophone Congolese poet and novelist and Man Booker International Prize finalist (2015); reporter, columnist and poet Ahmed Rajab; Henrietta Rose-Innes, a South African author who won the Caine Prize in 2008; Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer who has won the Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize, among others.

Here are fifty concise, entertaining histories on a broad, eclectic range of ideas (borders, feminism), global issues (migration, world trade), commodities (bananas, jeans), regions (Africa, Ireland), and institutions (corporations, the World Bank).

Lucid and irreverent, "Brief Histories of Almost Anything" challenges common perceptions associated with the subjects by going behind the facts. Each history has been selected from the "New Internationalist" magazine, a leading authority on alternative history and "Best International Coverage" winner in the "Utne Reader" Independent Press Awards.

Edited by Chris Brazier, author of the best-selling "No-Nonsense Guide to World History."