The winner of this year's prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing, Zambian writer Namwali Serpell, has told the BBC she will share her £10,000 ($15,600) prize with the other four runners-up.

"It is very awkward to be placed into this position of competition with other writers that you respect immensely and you feel yourself put into a sort of American idol or race horse situation when actually you all want to support each other," the US-based author told the BBC's Newsday programme.

The judges described her short story, The Sack, as "innovative, stylistically stunning, haunting and enigmatic".

The Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize are to merge to create one annual award for a work of literary fiction translated into English.

Jonathan Taylor, chair of the Man Booker Foundation, said at a press conference this morning (7th July) that the Man Booker International Prize used to lose momentum in the years it was not awarded, as it was given every two years. He also said it was difficult to understand, being awarded for a body of work rather than an individual title.

The new prize - retaining the Man Booker International Prize name - will see the £50,000 award money shared equally between the author and translator. Each of the shortlisted authors and translators will also get £1,000, meaning the winning author and translator will share a prize pot of £52,000. The total prize fund is therefore £62,000.