Nigerian author wins Caine Prize with 'darkly humorous' prose

London, England (CNN) -- Nigeria's Rotimi Babatunde has won the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story Bombay's Republic. His story follows a Nigeria soldier fighting in Burma campaign of World War II and returning home as a veteran with a strong sense of new opportunities. More: Young writers start new chapter in Nigeria's literary history

Speaking at the celebratory dinner in Oxford on Monday evening, Bernardine Evaristo, the chair of the judges, described Babatunde's work as "ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of Independence." continued