Staff and management of Naira Publishers have congratulated writer and art critic, Akinwande Jordan, on his short story that was shortlisted for the 2026 Caine Prize for African Writing and for being the only Nigerian on the shortlist.
The organisers of the ₤10,000-worth Caine Prize on Thursday announced Jordan’s ‘So Long Now It’s Starting To Look Like Eternity’ — published in the anthology, A House That’s Not A Home, edited by Haliru Ali Musa and Kingsley Alumona — as one of the five shortlisted short stories.
The anthology was published in February 2026 by Naira Books, an imprint of Nigerian-based publishing firm, Naira Publishers.
‘So Long Now It’s Starting To Look Like Eternity’ follows the failing marriage of two University of Lagos mathematics and literature professors, and the communication and emotional undertones that complicate their lives.
Jordan revealed that the story was inspired by Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’ and Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Scenes from a Marriage’.
“I’ll leave the significance of the story to readers. For me, it is an ode to, or portrait of, a Nigerian marriage and a critique of academic language and its inadequacies. Sometimes, words fail us. Language is insufficient; and vulnerability may be preferable to intellectual abstraction,” he said.
Reacting to the Caine Prize shortlist, Jordan said it feels palpably surreal, and that he is honoured beyond what words could qualify.
“I feel validated, humbled, and extremely elated. I do not regard this as the apogee of my literary career, but it affirms that my attempts to learn from writers I admire have not been futile,” he said.
Editors of the anthology, A House That’s Not A Home, Haliru Ali Musa and Kingsley Alumona, according to their statements on the Caine Prize official website, said that, right from the first paragraph of Jordan’s story, what struck them was the uniqueness of the language that reads like poetry and its pace that is consistent, leading to an unfamiliar territory.
According to the organisers of the Caine Prize, the five shortlisted stories were carefully selected from a pool of 407 entries originating from 27 African countries, representing a significant increase from the 2024 edition.
The other 2026 shortlisted writers of the prize are Gladwell Pamba (Kenya) for ‘The Last Shop’, published by Jahazi Press (August 2024); Melara Mvogdobo (Cameroon) for ‘Dieu Merci!’ published in Literatur.Review (August, 2025); Yasmine Zohdi (Egypt) for ‘The Absence of Stains’ published in The Republic (August 2025); and Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza (Zimbabwe) for ‘The Blue Fighter’ published in The Shallow Tales Review (June 2024).
The organisers of the prize stated that winner of this year’s edition of the prize will be announced at a ceremony in London, United Kingdom, in October and will subsequently be celebrated and presented with the prize in their country of origin.
“All the shortlisted stories will be published in the annual anthology alongside stories written at the Caine Prize Workshop, held this year in Tanzania,” the organisers added.
Furthermore, on the anthology, Naira Publishers commended the other writers whose short stories were published in the collection.
The other stories in the anthology are ‘Ask My Father’ by Fatima Okhuosami, ‘The Tiktoker and the Bandit’ by Mujahid Ameen Lilo, ‘Generation Z’ by Haliru Ali Musa, ‘Buried Voices’ by Zuwaira Halilu, ‘Fly’ by Chukwuemeka Famous, ‘My Godson’ by Joy Eyisi Jr, ‘It’s Something to do with Yusrah’ by Aliyu Yakubu, ‘Olanna’ by Grateful Ogunjebe, and ‘God’s Children’ by Kingsley Alumona.
Naira Publishers appreciated the contributions of Peculiar Okoro, Hope Idisi, and Betty Ige in copyediting the stories, and the artistic genius of Daniel Adegoke Alade in designing the cover and layout of the book.
The publisher also thanked the readers for reading the book, hoping that the stories impacted them in ways great stories do.