Publisher, Editor & Critic, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey Becomes Caine Prize Chairperson

The influential publisher, editor, critic, and broadcaster Ellah Wakatama Allfrey is now Chairperson of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Allfrey, who is Zimbabwean, and is a Trustee of the Prize, will be replacing Dr Delia Jarrett-Macauley in her role as Chair of the Board of Trustees and of the Advisory Council of the Caine Prize. The change comes as the Prize marks its 20th year in 2019. In an announcement on its website, the Caine Prize thanked Jarrett-Macauley for her work and revealed Allfrey’s new role.

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, OBE is the founding Publishing Director of The Indigo Press. She was a judge for the 2017 Dublin International Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. She is former deputy editor of Granta magazine and senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House. She is the editor of Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.

Allfrey is a trustee of The Royal Literary Fund and sits on the Advisory board for Art for Amnesty and the Editorial Advisory Panel of The Johannesburg Review of Books. In 2016, she was Visiting Professor and Global and Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana and Guest Master at the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia.